Toyota Says Sudden-Acceleration Lawsuits Don't Identify an `Actual Defect'

Lawsuits against Toyota Motor Corp. claiming sudden-acceleration recalls caused economic damages fail to identify an “actual defect” and should be dismissed, the company said in court papers.

Toyota faces about 400 lawsuits alleging lost vehicle value or injury or death from sudden acceleration. The economic loss lawsuits, brought as class, or group, actions claim a defect in Toyota’s electronic throttle control system can trigger episodes of inadvertent acceleration.

The plaintiffs haven’t defined a technical problem with the electronic throttle control system in Toyota vehicles, the company said in a court filing yesterday. Few of the vehicles in question have experienced any sign of sudden, unintended acceleration and few owners have sustained any loss, Toyota said.

“The most interesting point may be plaintiffs’ continued inability to point to an actual defect in the automobiles at issue,” the company said in the filing. “The suggestion that at some undisclosed time in the future, when these plaintiffs might attempt to sell their vehicles, they will suffer some loss legally traceable to a defect that they have never experienced, is sheer speculation.”

Defects Disclosure

The economic loss lawsuits, combined for pretrial filings and rulings in federal court in Santa Ana, California, claim Toyota drove down the value of vehicles by failing to fix or disclose defects that triggered unintended acceleration. Federal lawsuits claiming death or injury caused by such episodes are also combined in the Santa Ana court.

The company, based in Toyota City, Japan, has recalled more than 8 million vehicles for repairs related to sudden, unintended acceleration. In September, the automaker announced a recall of 3.8 million Toyota and Lexus vehicles because of a defect that may cause floor mats to jam accelerator pedals. The company later recalled vehicles over defects involving the pedals themselves.

“We believe the evidence clearly shows that Toyota recognized -- and could replicate -- sudden, unintended accelerations with their vehicles for nearly a decade,” plaintiffs’ attorney Steve Berman, of Seattle-based Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP, said today in an e-mail. “We also believe Toyota knew how to fix the problem using a brake- override system -- standard equipment with other carmakers.”

The cases are combined as In re Toyota Motor Corp. Unintended Acceleration Marketing, Sales Practices and Products Liability Litigation, 8:10-ml-02151, U.S. District Court, Central District of California (Santa Ana).

To contact the reporter on this story: Margaret Cronin Fisk in Southfield, Michigan, at mcfisk@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editor responsible for this story: David E. Rovella at drovella@bloomberg.net.

• Facebook Share
• LinkedIn
• Google +1
• COMMENTS
• Print
• QUEUE