Blankenship v. General Motors Corp.

NEELY, Justice:

In this case the United States District Court for the District of Maryland has certified the following question to us:

Does a complaint against the seller of a motor vehicle state a cause of action under West Virginia law if the complaint does not allege that a vehicle defect caused a collision, but does allege that the injuries sustained by the occupant as a result of the collision were enhanced by a design defect in the vehicle?

We answer the certified question in the affirmative, and like all of our sister states, we now explicitly adopt the “crashworthiness doctrine.” 1

There…