› $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 federal judge presiding over multi-district litigation (MDL) involving sudden-acceleration claims against Toyota said Monday he may reject the auto maker’s motion seeking to toss the first of hundreds of lawsuits.
ST. PAUL, MINN – Koua Fong Lee, who was imprisoned in 2007 after his Toyota Camry suddenly accelerated and crashed into traffic, killing three, gave an interview to the St. Paul Pioneer Press recently, looking back his wrongful conviction and subsequent release.
Toyota announced Wednesday it will recall about 82,000 hybrid Highlander and Lexus SUVs with faulty computer-board wiring that could cause the vehicles to lose power.
The strong Yen may feel great to Japanese consumers buying imported products or traveling to foreign destinations with a weaker currency, but it’s causing Toyota and other Japanese manufacturers a lot of pain. As the Yen continues to grow in strength against the weak dollar, Japanese exports such as Toyota and Lexus vehicles grow more expensive to the American consumer.
Toyota’s record-setting recalls of millions of vehicles for sudden unintended acceleration defects dealt the company that prides itself on quality and safety a huge blow. But it was the way the company handled the recalls that troubled regulators, prompted the largest fines in the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration’s history, and tarnished the carmaker’s reputation even more by calling its honesty and integrity into question. Now, as Toyota faces hundreds of personal-injury, wrongful death, and economic-loss lawsuits, it leaves other auto manufacturers a few great lessons on how not to conduct business.
Toyota has motioned for a second time that all economic-loss claims filed against it in the shadow of its sudden unintended acceleration problems be thrown out, but the judge overseeing the litigation has ruled in favor of the plaintiffs, saying they have sufficient grounds to move forward.
Toyota Motor Corp. has been dealt another blow, not by its own hand this time but by the forces of Mother Nature. Most of the carmaker’s 18 Japanese assembly plants shut down in the wake of the 9.0 magnitude earthquake that rocked much of the island nation. Additional destruction brought by the tsunami further hampered the company’s ability to return to normal operations, leaving U.S. dealerships to brace for the commercial aftershocks that will likely follow.
An emergency-room physician from Long Island, New York, told a jury Monday that Toyota failed to warn him that his 2005 Scion could unexpectedly speed out of control. The plaintiff was injured in October 2005 when he attempted to park his Toyota vehicle in the driveway of his Port Washington, New York, home. But instead of coming to a stop, the Scion suddenly accelerated. The plaintiff could not stop the car and it sped out of control until he hit a tree.
Toyota has recalled another 255,000 Lexus vehicles in the United States and Canada for fuel system defects, part of a larger global recall of Toyota and Lexus models that encompasses about 1.7 million vehicles. According to Toyota, “insufficient tightening of the fuel-pressure sensor connected to certain fuel-delivery pipes” could allow the sensor to come loose and create a gas leak.
