A Maine couple has gone to court against Mitsubishi Motors claiming the auto giant covered up design flaws that caused the death of their 25-year-old son. In the first day of what is expected to be a three-week trial, attorneys representing Donna and Peter Laliberte told a Palm Beach County jury that the auto manufacturer was well aware of defects with the seat belt and seat recliner in the Montero Sport. In fact, the plaintiffs charged that Mitsubishi took the unprecedented step of putting out a new version of the Montero Sport halfway through the 2000 model year to correct the flaws.

The lawsuit alleges flaws with the seat belt and the seat recliner mechanism caused Scott Laliberte to be partially ejected from the rear window of the 2000 Montero Sport his friend was driving in a September 2004 single-vehicle rollover crash on Interstate 95 in Brevard County as they were headed to the Orlando airport.

In December in Japan, two former Mitsubishi quality-control workers were found guilty of professional negligence in the death of a pedestrian crushed by a wheel rolling off a truck. Last month, Katsuhiko Kawasoe, a former Mitsubishi Motors president, was convicted of professional negligence in a fatal 2002 head-on crash, in which a driver died after the brakes failed on his Mitsubishi vehicle. A defective clutch system, which was later recalled, is suspected of causing the brake failure.