The automobile air bag is a wonderful safety device and has undoubtedly saved thousands of lives since its invention. It can also, however, be a killer. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reports that since 1990, air bag deployment has killed 227 people in low-severity crashes, including 76 drivers, 10 adult passengers, 119 children between the ages of 1 and 11, and 22 infants. In other words, air bags have killed people that would have otherwise lived in an accident without air bags.

There are three principal categories of air bag cases. The first involves the automobile manufacturer's failure to install air bags in the vehicle. The second category involves the failure of installed air bags to deploy. The third category involves air bag deployment in low severity crashes that cause injury or death. This category is the most common form of air bag liability case, and can involve either a defect in the design of the air bag, a defect in the manufacture of the air bag, or the manufacturer's failure to include appropriate instructions and warnings regarding the use of the air bag in the vehicle, thus causing the driver or passenger to, for example, fail to use their seat belts or to fail to position themselves appropriately for a possible air bag deployment.