After the recent death of Anton Yelchin, Star Trek and Terminator Salvation actor, his parents were mailed a recall letter for the Jeep Grand Cherokee their son died in during a rollaway accident. As the result, the Yelchin family attorney has issued a civil suit today against Fiat Chrysler for the wrongful death of their son.
The recall letter was received exactly seven days from his death due to an inactive gearshift. Fiat Chrysler has received hundreds of complaints with the Grand Cherokee model and has recalled over 8,000 of the cars since this April.
The 2014/2015 Grand Cherokee joystick is expected to be in the same position when the car is in neutral, parked or any other gearshift. Recently a lot of owners are confused as to when their car is truly set in park mode. Due to their uncertainty, owners have experienced their car rolling away when they are wrong about what gear the car is set in when parked.
The automatic Grand Cherokee Anton Yelchin owned, rolled down his steep driveway while he was outside his car and caused him to be pinned between his mailbox and his front entrance poll. LAPD and other Fiat Chrysler officials are investigating his tragic accident, trying to understand if the rollaway issue customers have previously complained about is involved in the actor’s death.
The Yelchin family commented publicly to the press that it is tragic to have to bury a child and that this incident could have been avoided. Anton Yelchin’s death has been declared as accidental “blunt traumatic asphyxia” by LAPD medical examiners. The Yelchin family hopes that Fiat Chrysler will learn a valuable lesson from their lawsuit.
Fiat Chrysler has recently commented on the Yelchin family loss, saying that they extend their sympathy and urge customers of the Grand Cherokee to use their emergency brake to ensure the car won’t roll away. The company has claimed that because of Yelchin’s death, they will install an “auto park” feature to their car’s gearshift.
As of this June, there have been 700 claims of Grand Cherokee rollaway incidents, which have caused 266 car accidents and 68 injuries.
