They did say they've never seen it before but according to their parts guy they've never even sold this hard bar so unless it would have been an older part number I don't think they've ever seen this failure before.  They are paying the entire bill and it's not going to be cheap so I have no reason to argue if they've seen it break before.  We got it mostly back together today but we've still got to finish up the right rear hub which got cracked (new hub, housing, bearing and seals) and then the left side is going to get a new bearing and seal as well.