Toyota Trials Start In 2013
The first of some 400 lawsuits pending against Toyota in the wake of the unintended acceleration scandal will go to trial by 2013, reports Bloomberg. U.S. District Judge James V. Selna has asked plaintiff lawyers to select “bellwether” cases from the hundreds of personal-injury, wrongful-death and economic-loss suits pending against Toyota to go to trial by 2013. Selna didn’t specify what types of cases would become bellwethers, cases which crystallize the case’s arguments and provide precedent for damages in other cases, but he did state that evidence discovery for them should be wrapped up in 2012. But before any of the federal trials open, there are still state-level trials to be heard. According to Bloomberg
Selna told the lawyers today that two state-court cases involving sudden-acceleration allegations are scheduled to go to trial in Texas in February and March of next year. Wylie Aitken, who is the attorney maintaining a liaison with state cases, said during a break in the hearing that both of those cases are personal injury claims.
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This should be interesting. In watching the football this weekend the Toyota ads were pervasive. They're pushing the "Safe" system hard. Coincidence? Doubtful.
A family man has gone free based on Toyota problems: http://www.kare11.com/news/news_article.aspx?storyid=863800 Toyota also settled $10m lawsuit for the Lexus ES300 with the wrong floor matts. Some cases Toyota will win, some they'll loose. It's factored in the price of a car.
I'm actually surprised that I've yet to see a personal injury lawyer commercial on daytime television targeting Toyota. Though I think these lawsuits are mostly a pathetic money grab, it would be nice to shake up the normal commercial block of "The-Scooter-Store/Wilfred Brimley/Vince Shlomi & his "Slap Chop"/Extenze cockhardner/Tax Masters/Roni Deutch/Etc."
So let me get this straight- hundreds of people, who are too stupid to be driving a car, got their gas pedals and brake pedals mixed up, many of them removing themselves from the gene pool in the process but some of them taking out innocent people. The result of this is a lot of vampires, vultures, and ambulance chasers (oops, Freudian slip- personal injury/tort lawyers) get richer instead of having productive jobs that actually contribute to society and cars are a little more expensive. Nice. Note, none of my negativity is directed towards legal system professionals who actually DO contribute to society and make the world a better place. Just the other ones on billboards and giant ads in the yellow pages.