Okay so let's interpret what is really happening - because the writer and editor of this news piece are clearly ignorant of it and don't want to spend half an hour to figure it out.
Man brings his vehicle, with a stick shift, to dealership to get serviced.
Employee A is 19 and doesn't know how to drive a stick shift.
Employee A attempts to drive the vehicle and lurches forward and hits Employee B and kills him.
Employee B's estate (and survivors/heirs/etc.) cannot sue Employee A because under the workers comp regime, a workers comp claim is the exclusive remedy for a workplace injury or death, even if caused by a co-employee. So this means there's no action against the co-employee. For the same reason, Employee B's estate cannot sue the employer (the dealership) for hiring or failing to train Employee A - also barred by workers comp.
So Employee B's estate will have full recovery of death benefits under Michigan's workers compensation system. But that's usually not considered enough so they're looking for someone else to sue. So lawyer for Employee B comes up with the idea to sue the car owner for this accident. This is likely a waste of time because winning on that claim would require that the accident was caused by a defect in the vehicle that the owner knew about and failed to warn the service people at dealership about . . . which is almost certainly not the case.
Unless there's some evidence that there was such a defect, this is unfortunately one of those situations where an overly aggressive lawyer is wasting his time and making the system look stupid.