Case Law Update: In re Kia Hyundai Vehicle Theft — Ninth Circuit Revives Insurers' Defect Claims Against the Korean Automakers

The Ninth Circuit has revived roughly 200 insurance companies' claims that Hyundai and Kia built cars that were too easy to steal, holding that the Korean parent manufacturers can be sued in California because they shipped the allegedly defective vehicles through California's ports. On September 14, 2026, a published opinion in In re Kia Hyundai Vehicle Theft Marketing, Sales Practices, and Products Liability Litigation: Insurance Subrogation Appeal, No. 24-5219, reversed the Central District of California's dismissal of the subrogation plaintiffs' complaint for lack of personal jurisdiction and sent the case back for further proceedings. The ruling decides who can be sued where — not whether the vehicles were defective.

What the case is about

The opinion opens with the origin of the problem: "In 2020, teenagers in Milwaukee calling themselves the 'Kia Boyz' on social media platforms popularized a method for stealing certain Hyundai and Kia vehicles in a matter of seconds." According to the court, the affected cars lacked an engine immobilizer — "an anti-theft device that prevents a car from starting without an authorized key" — and as videos spread showing how to bypass the ignition "using only a screwdriver and a USB cable," thefts of those vehicles "skyrocketed nationwide."

The resulting lawsuits were consolidated into a multidistrict litigation before Judge James V. Selna in the Central District of California (No. 8:22-ml-03052-JVS-KES) and organized into three tracks: subrogation claims, consumer claims, and claims by governmental entities. This appeal involves only the subrogation track — roughly 200 insurers that paid theft and attempted-theft claims to their policyholders and now seek to recover those payouts as subrogees to their insureds' rights.

The insurers allege that particular Hyundai and Kia vehicles from model years 2011 to 2022 were defectively designed because they lacked engine immobilizers. The operative complaint asserts breach of express and implied warranties, state consumer-protection violations, fraud, unjust enrichment, and negligent failure to warn. Those remain allegations; no court has ruled on them.

What the Ninth Circuit actually held

The defendants at issue were Hyundai Motor Company and Kia Corporation — the Korean parents, incorporated and headquartered in South Korea — as distinct from their American distribution subsidiaries, Hyundai Motor America and Kia America. The panel (Judges Wardlaw, Berzon, and Miller; opinion by Judge Miller) held the Korean entities are subject to specific personal jurisdiction in California.

• Shipping through California ports counts. Even though the Korean entities "did not themselves sell the allegedly defective vehicles in California," they "expressly aimed their intentional, and allegedly tortious, actions" at the state by "sending thousands of shipments of vehicles to and through California's ports." The insurers produced bills of lading indicating that more than 70 percent of Hyundai Motor Company's U.S. shipments and roughly 77 percent of Kia Corporation's went through California ports.
• "FOB origin" did not defeat jurisdiction. The manufacturers argued the cars were shipped free on board origin, so title and risk passed to the American subsidiaries in Korea. The panel held that "regardless of when title passed, it is undisputed that the Korean entities were listed as the shippers of record in the bills of lading identified by plaintiffs," and that their declarations "conspicuously do not deny that, as the shippers, they controlled where the vehicles were shipped."
• U.S.-specific design mattered. The complaint alleges the Korean entities designed standard models without immobilizers specifically for the U.S. market — reserving the anti-theft equipment for luxury trim packages — while the same models sold in Canada and other markets included them. The panel held that targeting the nation rather than the single state sufficed, citing circuit precedent that "differential targeting" or a "forum-specific focus" is not required.
• The insurers still lost one point. On the evidentiary question, the panel held the district court "correctly ignored plaintiffs' contradicted and unsupported allegations" about advertising and distribution control, because the manufacturers filed declarations contradicting them and the insurers answered only by pointing back to their complaint rather than filing declarations of their own.
• Reasonableness is undecided. The burden has now shifted to the manufacturers to "present a compelling case" that jurisdiction is unreasonable. The district court never reached that question, so the Ninth Circuit "leave[s] it to the district court on remand to resolve that issue in the first instance." The disposition: "REVERSED and REMANDED."

What this means if you have a vehicle defect or warranty claim

This is a Ninth Circuit decision applying federal due-process standards to California; it does not bind Florida courts, and it resolves a procedural question rather than the merits of the defect claims. Still, several practical points are worth noting:

• A foreign parent manufacturer is not automatically out of reach. Where a manufacturer is the shipper of record and directs large volumes of product into a particular state's ports, that physical entry can support specific jurisdiction even when a domestic subsidiary handles the actual sales.
• At the jurisdiction stage, declarations beat allegations. The one point the insurers lost turned on procedure: when a defendant files a sworn declaration contradicting the complaint, resting on the complaint alone can forfeit the allegation. Conflicting declarations get resolved in the plaintiff's favor.
• Design differences between markets are evidence. The allegation that the same model shipped with anti-theft equipment abroad but without it in the U.S. did real work in this opinion, and that kind of comparison can matter in warranty and defect cases generally.

Nothing here predicts how any particular claim would come out. If you are dealing with a denied vehicle service contract or warranty claim in Florida, learn how vehicle service contracts work or request a free case evaluation to have your contract and repair history reviewed.

Case: In re Kia Hyundai Vehicle Theft Marketing, Sales Practices, and Products Liability Litigation: Insurance Subrogation Appeal, No. 24-5219 (9th Cir. Sept. 14, 2026) (Miller, J.), on appeal from the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, No. 8:22-ml-03052-JVS-KES (Selna, J.); argued and submitted November 19, 2025. Published opinion. Reported as of September 22, 2026; proceedings on remand may change the posture of the case. More rulings at Case Law & Industry Insights.