› $150,000,000 verdict in personal injury case
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.
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.
When Mark Saylor called 911 from behind the wheel of a Lexus ES350 in 2009, he frantically yelled that nothing he did would stop or even slow the vehicle from speeding out of control on the California freeway. Mr. Saylor and his family died during that phone call, but had Mr. Saylor known more about the vehicle’s keyless push-button ignition system, would the fiery crash have been averted?
A man who was imprisoned and subsequently released after his 1996 Camry sped out of control and crashed into another vehicle, killing three people, is seeking additional damages against Toyota.
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.
The first lawsuits filed in federal courts against Toyota will be tried as belwether cases sometime during the first quarter of 2013, Judge James Selna of U.S. District Court in Santa Ana, California, announced yesterday. Judge Selna asked plaintiffs’ lawyers to be prepared to select the belwether cases, which will serve as test cases to determine how the rest of the litigation will proceed.
A California judge presiding over multidistrict legislation on Toyota sudden acceleration claims has issued a 108-page order that allows plaintiffs with economic-loss claims to proceed with their lawsuits against the auto manufacturer.
A federal judge in Santa Ana, California dealt Toyota a major legal blow when he rejected the automaker’s petition to have all class-action lawsuits seeking damages related to sudden-unintended-acceleration (SUA) issues thrown out.
Koua Fong Lee, the Minnesota father who spent more than two and a half years in a Minnesota prison on vehicular homicide charges for a 2006 crash, is suing Toyota Motor Corp., alleging the company knew its cars could accelerate unintentionally but failed to recall them or warn drivers.
