› $150,000,000 verdict in personal injury case
State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance is suing Toyota Motor Sales in an effort to recoup a claim it paid to a policyholder whose 2007 Camry suddenly accelerated as she was attempting to park. The insurance company alleges that Toyota installed a faulty accelerator pedal in the plaintiff’s car, causing it to surge forward and collide with a building, causing several thousands of dollars in damage.
Safety Research & Strategies Inc. (SRS), the Massachusetts auto safety firm that has been instrumental in holding Toyota accountable for defects related to sudden unintended acceleration in its vehicles, is suing the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) for withholding records that could provide critical insight into the sudden-acceleration problem.
An independent study conducted by researchers at the University of Maryland’s Center for Advanced Life Cycle Engineering (CALCE) demonstrates that, contrary to NASA’s conclusions, an electronic cause for the sudden unintended acceleration problem in Toyota vehicles is not just probable, but highly likely.
Lawyers representing hundreds of plaintiffs suing Toyota over sudden acceleration incidents are challenging a NASA report that concluded electronic defects aren’t responsible for causing Toyota and Lexus vehicles to accelerate unexpectedly. Toyota has argued the defects that triggered a global recall of millions of vehicles over sudden-acceleration issues are caused by mechanical problems and driver error, not electronic flaws.
Santa Ana, California — U.S. District Judge James Selna, who is presiding over hundreds of Toyota sudden unintended acceleration cases coordinated in multidistrict litigation, has told plaintiffs’ lawyers to resolve an evidence dispute so that the first cases can go to trial in 2013. One of the main obstacles that needs to be cleared before the cases can proceed concerns the examination of the software source code that governs the electronic throttle system in the recalled Toyota vehicles.
An automotive research company has just released its list of the 2010 and 2011 models that spend the most and least time on the dealership lot waiting to be sold. Topping the list of 2010 cars spending the most time parked until sale is the Toyota Camry, the model that has most often headlined articles about sudden unintended acceleration.
Toyota Motor Corp. has reached a settlement with the families of Mark Saylor and his wife and brother-in-law over the high-profile crash near San Diego last year that killed all the occupants of a rented Lexus ES 350, including the Saylors’ 13-year-old daughter. According to court filings, the settlement was reached quietly sometime in June and Toyota has formally requested that the details of the settlement be kept confidential.
Just as the nation’s fixation on Toyota’s sudden acceleration problem started to fade, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration announced it would intensify its investigations of another safety concern: sudden stalling.
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.
An Associated Press report says that David Gilbert, the Southern Illinois University automotive technology professor who testified against Toyota during a Congressional hearing in February, came under attack by the auto giant for his findings that linked incidents of sudden, unintended acceleration in Toyota vehicles to the cars’ electronic throttle controls.
