A group of defendants that allegedly assembled and distributed a bus that was involved in a fatal Utah crash with a group of Chinese tourists aboard seek dismissal, arguing that the only connection to Illinois is a billing address for one of the defendants’ offices.
“Plaintiffs are all Chinese residents and were injured in a single vehicle accident in Utah," the motion to dismiss states. "The Truck was purchased from a vendor in Indiana, delivered to SVO’s facility in Indiana, and designed, assembled, and manufactured in Indiana. As such, because this court lacks both general and specific jurisdiction over the SVO defendants, plaintiffs’ claims against them should be dismissed.”
Defendants SVO Group Inc., Embassy Specialty Vehicles LLC and Terrance Minx filed a motion to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction or improper venue on May 4 through attorney Scott Stephenson of Litchfield Cavo LLP in Chicago.
“Plaintiffs conclusorily plead that this court has general and specific jurisdiction over the SVO defendants because it purchased a chassis and truck cab from co-defendant Truck Centers Inc., a company in Troy, Illinois,” the supporting brief states.
However, the defendants argue that the legal conclusion is “unsupported by sufficient factual allegations” and contradicted by declarations of the defendants’ employees.
SVO, Embassy and Minx are all citizens of Indiana rather than Illinois and all transactions occurred outside of Illinois, they argue.
“All significant actions and transitions relating to plaintiffs’ claims - from the manufacture of the bus to the accident itself - took place outside of Illinois,” the brief states.
The defendants argue that the plaintiffs incorrectly allege the truck’s “body” was manufactured and installed on the chassis by co-defendant Daimler Trucks North America LLC. However, they allege it was actually designed by DTNA in Oregon and manufactured in Mexico. The truck was then sold and shipped from Texas to Truck Centers in Indiana. It was then purchased through Dave Klockow at Truck Centers in Elkhart, Ind.
“Although the bill of sale provided by Truck Centers required payments to be remitted to Truck Centers’ Troy, Illinois facility, SVO actually paid Mr. Klockow at the time the truck was delivered to the SVO facility,” the brief states.
SVO then assembled the bus and sold it to Coachwest Luxury & Professional Motorcars in California.
“Therefore, the only ‘contact’ with Illinois was the fortuitous fact that the broker of the sale has an office in Illinois,” it continues. “This tenuous connection to Illinois is insufficient to establish specific jurisdiction.”
The defendants add that Embassy was not in existence until Nov. 5, 2019, which is nearly two months after the crash.
“It could not possibly have been involved with suit-specific conduct that could give rise to personal jurisdiction, as it wasn’t even in existence at the time of the vehicle’s manufacture or accident,” the brief states.
Previously, Truck Centers Inc. also filed a motion to transfer venue or dismiss on April 19 through attorney Daniel Costello of Chicago, arguing that “absolutely nothing” occurred in Illinois in relation to the complaint.
“Plaintiffs certainly recognize this as the complaint is completely devoid of any allegation to even suggest that a claim-related-event occurred in Illinois. Clearly, this is a prime example of forum shopping rather than identification of an appropriate venue pursuant to applicable law,” Costello wrote.
Truck Centers argues that if the court were to retain jurisdiction, the defendant should be dismissed from the complaint.
“Plaintiffs’ complaint itself evidences that the only role Truck Centers played for the vehicle underlying plaintiffs’ complaint is of a distributor,” Costello wrote. “Illinois law mandates a dismissal with prejudice.”
The plaintiffs filed a response in opposition to Truck Centers’ motion on May 24 through attorney Derek Brandt of McCune Wright Arevalo LLP in Edwardsville.
“Though Truck Centers’ headquarters sits in this district, no further than 20 miles from this court, the theme of its motion to dismiss for improper venue is that plaintiffs are somehow ‘forum-shopping’ by filing their lawsuit in the Southern District of Illinois,” Brandt wrote.
“Indeed, the unlikely proposition that plaintiffs are forum-shopping by filing a lawsuit in Truck Centers’ backyard says much about its logic here,” he added. “Plaintiffs can establish that the Southern District of Illinois is an appropriate venue for this lawsuit because defendant Daimler Trucks of North America sold the chassis to Truck Centers in Illinois, putting Illinois directly in the relevant stream of commerce. From there, the question of this court’s propriety as a venue is an easy one; the chassis sale is a substantial historical predicate for plaintiffs’ lawsuit.”
The plaintiffs also argue that the Distributor Statute, which allows a distributor to be “dismissed from a strict liability claim upon certifying the identity of the product’s manufacturer,” provides an exception when the distributor knew of an alleged defect.
“Here, plaintiffs allege that the chassis was unsafe because it lacked key safety features such as electronic lane departure warnings and vehicle stability controls,” Brandt wrote. “Truck Centers knew the chassis possessed these inherent flaws - even the bill of sale (which plaintiffs included in their complaint) expressly stated that these potentially life-saving safety features were missing.”
Daimler Trucks also filed a motion to dismiss the complaint on March 11, claiming that because none of the alleged events occurred in Illinois, Truck Centers being an Illinois corporation could not establish venue.
Hangxio Che, Dengxing Chen, Jianguang Chu, Wan Yun Feng, Guoshen Gao, Xing Gao, Zufang He, Bingdong Jiang, Wanxia Jin, Jiagi Liu, Chenduo Qi, husband of decedent Xiuyum Chen, Wenhao Qi, son of Xiuyum Chen, Shouqi Shen, Youxin Song, Bingmei Xie, Dong Mei Xu, Qian Xu, Qin Xu, Zumian Wang, and Guifang Zhou filed the complaint on Feb. 15.
According to the complaint, a group of 29 Chinese citizens and one tour leader traveled from China to Los Angeles in September 2019 to participate in a tour of various national parks located in the western part of the country. On Sept. 16, the group began the tour on a 36-passenger Embassy bus designed and manufactured by SVO Group Inc. The bus had a Freightliner Mc 106 chassis designed and manufactured by Daimler Trucks North America. The bus was owned and operated by American Shengji Inc. and was driven by Yu Ren.
On Sept. 20, 2019, they were traveling on the bus at approximately 11:30 a.m. on eastbound Utah State Route 12, a two-laned asphalt paved and striped roadway near Bryce Canyon. The bus was traveling at the posted speed limit of 65 mph when its right-side tires went off the paved roadway while negotiating a slight curve to the right. The driver allegedly attempted to steer the bus back onto the roadway, causing the bus to cross into the westbound travel lane. The driver then steered the bus back, which caused it to enter into a “clockwise yaw. The bus then rolled onto the driver’s side and started sliding on the paved roadway, roof first. When the roof hit the guardrail on the left side of the roadway, the bus rolled another 270 degrees and came to a stop on its wheels.
The crash allegedly caused the roof to deform and create openings, resulting in the ejection of 11 passengers and partial ejection of two others. As a result, four passengers were killed, 15 were seriously injured and 11 suffered minor injuries.
The plaintiffs argue that the jurisdiction is proper because “some or all of the transactions or occurrences related to this action occurred within this district.”
The plaintiffs allege the bus lacked proper stability control systems and had design flaws. They also claim the defendants failed to properly test the vehicle’s crashworthiness, failed to have lane departure warning systems and other safety-related systems in accordance with the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration guidelines.
Specifically, the defendants allegedly fabricated a one-piece molded roof out of vacuum-formed fiberglass, resulting in a lighter bus body. The plaintiffs allege the defendants failed to adequately research, test, and inspect the ramifications of stripping necessary weight.
“As evidenced by the subject vehicle’s performance in this incident, the strength of its superstructure was insufficient to ensure the residual survival space during the rollover event and to prevent the opening of large portals exposing passengers to the external environment during that event,” the complaint states.
Additionally, the bus had a single luggage storage compartment at the back of the bus behind the rear axles and extending from the floor to the roof of the vehicle. The plaintiffs allege the luggage compartment negatively impacted the stability and handling characteristics of the bus, making it difficult for the driver to control.
“Defendants were aware of the probability of accidents resulting from cutaway bus vehicles drifting off the paved service and/or being exposed to oversteer situations and experiencing excessive yaw in an on-road scenario. Indeed, that is why the Daimler Defendants partnered with Meritor-WABCO more than a decade before the subject Embassy Bus was built, in order to develop and install systems that would prevent these types of accident from happening and to avoid a catastrophic result when they did occur,” the suit states.
U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Illinois case number 3:21-cv-180