Lawsuits Mounting Against Toyota
February 8, 2010 (by Horatio Algren) According to reports lawsuits are mounting against Toyota Motor Corp. The approximately 30 class-action lawsuits that have been filed against the Japanese automaker after a little over two weeks since Toyota Motor Corp recalled models of their vehicles and stopped the sales of new models. The recalls that included 8 million of the automakers vehicles was for gas pedals that stick.
According to a New York based mediation firm, there will be a suit against Toyota in every town in the United States. This is to be expected with the victims and a rich automaker.
Ehline Law, a Toyota Injury Lawyer in California has a website questioning visitors to the site if they or a loved one has been injured or killed in an accident due to a defective gas pedal or floor mat. The site also informs visitors that they could be entitled to a substantial compensation.
The website for the American Association for Justice, which is a website of national plantiff’s lawyers trade group, states on their site “Coming soon Toyota Sudden Acceleration Litigation Packet”. This will be where all plaintiff attorneys will need to enter the names and other data into a boilerplate lawsuit according to reports.
Matt Cairns president of DRI, which is the Voice of the Defense Bar, says the Toyota lawsuits are becoming a sort of cottage industry. The DRI is the largest association of U.S. civil defense attorneys.
The expected lawsuits will include death, injury and claimants stating that Toyota Motor Corp hid the truth about their vehicle defects. It is also expected that the lawsuits could take years to settle and it will end with a business decision on Toyota’s part whether it is better to settle or to fight dozens of cases in court.
Some of the Recent Toyota Recall Cases
The cases that that will be brought against the automaker will be the obvious cases that involved injuries and deaths. To date in the U.S. there are at least 19 crash deaths that occurred during the past decade that could be connected to the accelerated problems according to congressional officials and an unknown amount of accident injuries that could result in lawsuits.
Since the recall and the attention Toyota vehicles have been getting owners of these vehicles that had accidents over the past few years will wonder if these defects contributed to their accident, due to unintended acceleration according to at least one attorney at Ehline Law.
They have successfully won cases against defendants in many accidents. Michael Ehline stated that Toyota will need to make a decision whether to settle out of court or to incur the expense of going to trial with so many of these lawsuits.
Ehline said that his product liability firm has seen that so far, there are a small percentage of vehicles that experienced the unintended acceleration, but that will probably not stop some people from trying to file lawsuits against Toyota anyways.
The cases will more than likely include those claiming that the recall lowered the resale value of their vehicles and people claiming that selling a faulty vehicle is in breach of their warranty.
One case filed February 2nd alleges that Toyota deliberately hid the acceleration defects from the public. According to that suit, it is alleged the automaker knew about the defect and concealed it from the public.
There will also likely be claims against Toyota by insurance companies for accidents that might have been caused by the defective acceleration systems. Many experts expect there will be lawsuits filed for the Toyota Prius and these vehicles could also become a part of the recall. According to Carins of DRI if Toyota has not already hired the best defect defense attorneys in the United States they should be.
If you were injured in a Toyota Recall accident, contact Ehline Law | Injury Lawyer PC. Address: 633 West Fifth Street, 28th Floor, Los Angeles, CA, 90071; 6700 East Pacific Coast Highway, Suite 275, Long Beach, CA 90803; 14007 Palawan Way Marina del Rey, CA, 90292; 201 Wilshire Blvd, Second Floor, Santa Monica, CA, 90401; 620 Newport Center Drive, Suite 1100 Newport Beach, CA, 92660; 50 Francisco Street, Suite 460 San Francisco, CA 94133. Phone: 888-400-9721; 213.596.9642.
