February 9, 2010
Toyota Hammered With Lawsuits Over Safety Problems
The hits keep on coming for Toyota, which now finds itself a defendant in a swath of economic and personal injury lawsuits that promise to compound the company's already sizable problems.
The automaker, which has seen its reputation go from trusted provider of safe, affordable vehicles to negligent and ham-handed death-trap producer in less than a month, is facing at least 30 class action lawsuits stemming from its recent safety woes.
Beasley Allen, a well-known Alabama plaintiffs' firm, announced on Thursday that it filed suit in federal court in Florida "on behalf of over 5 million Toyota owners whose vehicles have been recalled by Toyota." The firm is best known for its 2007 settlement on behalf of Vioxx users who suffered a stroke, heart attack, or death. At $4.85 billion, that settlement stands as the largest in U.S. history.
Beasley Allen's suit alleges breach of warranty, fraudulent concealment, unjust enrichment, and breach of the covenant of good faith and fair dealing. The firm's statement confirms reports by ConsumerAffairs.com that unintended acceleration has long been an issue for Toyota.
The law firm cites estimates by Sean Kane, an independent expert on automotive safety, that an eye-popping "2,262 incidents involving unintended acceleration have been reported since 1999." Kane believes that 815 accidents involving Toyotas, resulting in 19 deaths and 341 injuries, were caused by unintended acceleration.
Meanwhile, California firm McCune Wright is forging ahead with a suit filed on November 5, long before the public uproar over Toyota's problems erupted. On Friday, the firm filed for a preliminary injunction "seeking an immediate order requiring Toyota to expand the Sudden Unintended Acceleration recalls," according to their statement.
McCune Wright says that Toyota's recently-announced brake override system is not being installed on nearly enough vehicles. The override allows the car's onboard computer to detect when the accelerator and the brake are being depressed simultaneously, and return the car's throttle to idle.
According to McCune Wright, "[B]y limiting this brake over-ride system recall to recent model years for just six vehicle models, Toyota has left more than 75 percent of the affected models and model years out of this important recall."
And Colorado firm Burg Simpson Eldredge Hersh & Jardine accuses Toyota of covering up the acceleration problem despite knowing about it for several years. In a suit filed suit on Friday, the firm basically says that consumers wasted money on cars they thought were reliable and safe to drive.
"The problem is that, even for people who have not experienced an unexpected acceleration, they now own a car that they likely wouldn't have bought or, at least, wouldn't have paid as much for had they known about this dangerous, life-threatening defect," said lawyer Michael Burg in a statement.
"Perfect storm of negligence"
There are increasing allegations that Toyota willfully turned a blind eye to the unintended acceleration issue, despite years of reports and complaints.
Kane told the Washington Post on Friday that Toyota failed to install brake override systems earlier, despite receiving complaints of unintended acceleration. "Most other automakers have adopted this technology," Kane said, adding that Toyota's negligence helped "create this perfect storm."
And Toyota's latest headache -- the revelation that its newest Prius hybrid likely has dangerous brake problems -- attracted at least one lawsuit of its own. A Canadian firm, Merchant Law Group, filed suit on Friday, alleging that the car shuts off power to the brakes in an attempt to save energy.
"As the vehicle switches to the brake pad system, there is a lapse where the vehicle has no braking power," attorney Tony Merchant said in a statement.
The current lawsuits are just the tip of the iceberg. The number of class actions that Toyota will face is anyone's guess, although the company is almost certain to find a few more complaints in its mailbox on Monday morning. A likely course of action is consolidation of the lawsuits in a single federal court. The seven-member Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation routinely orders consolidation of complex cases pending in multiple districts that involve at least one common issue of fact.
In addition to its class action woes, Toyota is also facing at least ten individual suits, most of which allege personal injury as a result of unintended acceleration. A Houston plaintiff alleges in a $200 million suit that his wife was killed in an accident in December, after her 2009 Corolla accelerated uncontrollably and crashed into a cement barrier.
