Personal Injury Law

Toyota Class Action Personal Injury Lawsuits Grow

By Michael

Toyota may be facing even more legal problems stemming from their recent recalls, but these aren’t because of sticky gas pedals.

Several groups of vehicle owners are now filing class action lawsuits against the Japanese auto maker, alleging that all of the personal injury and wrongful death lawsuits that have been filed against the company are lowering resale values of their Toyotas.

The class action suits alone could cost the beleaguered car company $3 billion and possibly more, according to a study by the Associated Press.

Possible payouts and court-ruled damage costs for wrongful death and personal injury lawsuits filed against Toyota could still cost the company millions alongside the class action suits.

There are at least 6 million car owners claiming their vehicles have lost value, and while such claims may have lower individual payouts than the injury cases, the sheer volume of them could cost the automaker billions.

University of Pennsylvania law professor Tom Baker described the possibility of so many class action suits as more damaging than cases when a person was actually injured or killed.

?A super-big injury case would be $20 million,? Baker told the AP. ?But you could have millions of individual car owners who could (each) be owed $1,000. If I were Toyota, I’d be more worried about those cases.?

The crux of the class action suits claim the automaker knew about car safety problems and concealed that knowledge from the public. Kelley Blue Book made a recent decision to lower the resale value of recalled Toyotas an average 3.5 percent.

An upcoming court hearing in San Diego could have a dramatic effect on the various lawsuits filed against Toyota since the company began recalling automobiles for gas pedal problems.

A panel of judges will decide whether all of the different lawsuits can be consolidated into one legal action, and whether all the claims have enough merit to move forward in court.

According to the AP, about 8 million vehicles worldwide have been recalled by Toyota since fall 2009. At least 52 people have died in crashes that appear to have stemmed from the accelerator issues that led to the sweeping recalls.

The $3 billion figure mainly stems from the estimate made by Northeastern University law professor Tim Howard, who is serving as a leading attorney in the class-action cases. If each of the 6 million car owners who claim a drop in value are paid roughly $500 each by Toyota, the total figure would be about $3 billion.

Full post as published by The Injury Blog on March 14, 2010 (boomark / email).