Ex-Worker of Air-Bag Parts Firm Sues Over Firing : Courts: Woman says her dismissal followed a complaint about possible defective products. The Newhall company denies the allegations.

A Canyon Country woman filed suit Friday against a Newhall company charging that she was illegally fired after she complained that the firm may be shipping defective parts for automotive air bags that would prevent the bags from inflating in a crash.

Amalia Rubin, 35, said in her lawsuit filed in San Fernando Superior Court that she reported her suspicions to her superiors at Special Devices Inc., but they told her “don’t worry about it.”

Company President John Cuthbert denied the allegations.

“We did not discharge her for that reason,” he said. “That’s ridiculous, and furthermore, the allegation (of shipping defective devices) is simply not true. We have spent literally millions of dollars to assure the quality of these products.”

Cuthbert would not discuss the specific reason for Rubin’s firing, but denied her claim that she was fired for taking Tylenol with codeine while on the job, which she denies doing.

Rubin is seeking $1.5 million in general damages and $5 million in exemplary and punitive damages.

SDI, incorporated in California in 1976, manufactures, distributes and sells a piece of equipment called an “initiator.” Electric initiators contain the explosive device used to ignite the inflation system in automotive air bags, which are designed to open upon impact in a crash to protect the front-seat occupants.

Rubin said that during her employment from June, 1990, to March 3, 1993, first as a quality assurance inspector and later as a foreman, she occasionally discovered discrepancies in the number of initiators in specific lots.

That meant that “there were either mixed and/or extra initiators in each lot which . . . .may not have been properly inspected thereby being defective . . .,” she said in her suit.

Rubin said she believes company officials ignored her suspicions because of the extra costs involved in reinspecting the devices.

“I think that is why they didn’t want to bother,” Rubin said in an interview at her attorney’s Calabasas office.

Rubin’s attorney, Gregory W. Smith, said the suit was filed not only to compensate his client for the illegal firing, but to bring public attention to the possibility that some air bags in cars currently on the street may not inflate upon impact.

“We want to ensure that people are driving automobiles that are going to be equipped with air bags that are going to operate,” Smith said.

According to the company’s 1991 prospectus when 2 million shares of common stock were offered, SDI designs and manufactures pyrotechnic devices used by the aerospace industry, primarily in tactical missile systems, and by the automotive industry as initiators in air-bag systems.

The company began testing and designing initiators for air bags in 1986, and began producing initiators for Morton International Inc., to be used by Chrysler Corp., in 1991.

SDI has been producing initiators for TRW Inc. since July, 1991, which in turn produced air bags for four major automobile manufacturers. SDI estimated its annual sales from the TRW contract reached $13 million in 1992, and projected $30 million in sales in 1994.

According to the prospectus, the initiator market is dominated by two suppliers other than SDI, both of which produce initiators in commercial quantities.