› $150,000,000 verdict in personal injury case
The federal judge overseeing lawsuits filed in federal courts against Toyota for sudden unintended acceleration damages has dismissed the lawsuit previously selected as the first bellwether case, saying it belonged in a Utah State court.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is investigating several consumer complaints involving Ford’s Freestyle car-SUV crossover vehicles for their potential to lunge forward unexpectedly. The agency’s database says the investigation was opened on May 11, 2011, after receiving 238 complaints about problems with the vehicles’ speed control.
Allstate Insurance Company has filed a lawsuit against Toyota Motor Corp. for $3 million in an effort to recover the claims it paid to Toyota and Lexus drivers involved in sudden acceleration incidents. Allstate alleges it paid 270 sudden acceleration-related claims since 2007.
Toyota says it receives about 150 reports of sudden unintended acceleration every week, with most of the complaints coming through the the company’s customer-service hotline. The good news is that six months ago, the car manufacturer was receiving more than 5 times that amount. The bad news is that about 600 Toyota drivers a month throughout the U.S. still report instances and events in which their vehicles accelerated unexpectedly.
A Minnesota judge has freed Loua Fong Lee, a Southeast Asian immigrant and father of four who was convicted in 2007 of criminal vehicular homicide after his 1996 Toyota Camry sped out of control and crashed into another vehicle, killing three people.
If ever there were a case for the “never should have happened” file, it would be the story of Koua Fong Lee, who immigrated to the United States from his Hmong tribe in Southeast Asia shortly before he lost of control of his 1996 Camry and caused a devastating crash in Minnesota.
In what is starting to sound like a recall du jour, Toyota has announced that it will recall about 600,000 Sienna minivans sold in the United States over concerns the spare tires, held in place by cables that are prone to rust, may separate from the vehicle.
Why did the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration slap Toyota with the maximum allowable civil penalty of $16.375 million for its failure to promptly notify the federal agency of a potential safety defect in 2.3 million cars? Was this fine, by far the largest ever imposed by the NHTSA against a car maker, justified?
After finding serious flaws in the electronic stability controls (ESC) and performance of the 2010 Lexus GX 460 SUV, Consumer Reports is “urging consumers not to buy” the vehicle until parent company Toyota finds a fix. In response, Toyota has suspended sales of the vehicle nationwide until it can determine what is wrong with them and how they may be repaired.
An Associated Press investigation has uncovered numerous examples that Toyota has relied on highly evasive, deceptive, and unethical legal tactics when defending itself against a spectrum of claims in court. The AP investigation involved an examination of lawsuits filed against Toyota throughout in the country in the past decade.
