Personal Injury Law

Should Toyota face criminal penalties?

By Brian F. LaBovick, Esq.

How can Toyota have actual knowledge of their cars sticky accelerators, give wrong information to the United States National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, and NOT face criminal penalty?

Presently there is a Federal Grand Jury proceeding in New York, which is investigating the 'timeliness of Toyota's reporting of its sudden-acceleration complaints and fixes.' I am betting that the United States Attorney will open an investigation soon for criminal penalties against the company.  Many innocent victims have died because Toyota hid the truth about safety issues.

Human lives are not to be counted on an actuarial chart and compared to the financial impact on a company before making a known defect public.  When you are producing a dangerous product and putting it in the stream of commerce, you must correct know defects; otherwise, you are acting with reckless abandon in harming human life.

The very definition of manslaughter is the unlawful killing of a human being without premeditation or intent through gross negligence.  The difference between this and actual murder is that murder requires actual malicious intent.  Former Toytota counsel Dimitrios Biller said that Toyota had systematically disregarded the law.  He said to CNN that the material he had reviewed was 'very, very disturbing.'  Toyota continues to fight the litigation requests to review their most important documents.  They are also not permitting their old lawyer to say what he knows. 

Hopefully, the public will not feel bad for Toyota because tough minded trial attorneys want to hold Toyota accountable for their reckless conduct.

 

Full post as published by LaBovick Injury Law Blog on March 12, 2010 (boomark / email).