Legal News

Why Aren?t Plaintiffs? Lawyers Drooling Over Recent Toyota Revelations?

By Dionne Searcey

You'd think that the slew of Toyota revelations – incriminating emails about cover-ups, for instance – would leave plaintiffs' attorneys licking their litigious chops.

But the revelations from last week and documented here in today's New York Times have landed with a thud among the realm of attorneys who have filed dozens of suits against Toyota seeking to hold it responsible for sudden unintended acceleration events.

The NYT story, and others that came before it, quote an email from a Toyota executive that says, "I hate to break this to you but we have a tendency for mechanical failure in accelerator pedals of a certain manufacturer on certain models." In past weeks, internal documents that came to light have boasted of a $100 million in savings for the Japanese auto maker by limiting a 2007 floor mat recall to 55,000 vehicles.

Lawyers on the plaintiffs' side however are fixated on electronics being to blame for Toyota vehicles accelerating out of control. It's a charge Toyota has vehemently denied. So why aren't attorneys jumping for joy at what seems like it could be a couple of smoking guns?

The cynical side of us says the answer may be in the payout. If electronics are to be blamed, the number of plaintiffs is considerably larger, affecting not only the recalled vehicles but those with electronic systems in models dating to 2002.

The damages then would be much bigger, meaning a bigger payday for the lawyers. To be clear, if electronics are to blame Toyota has a much bigger problem on its hands as recalling the electronics in its vehicles could be far more expensive than recalls involving not much more than removing a floor mat.

The other reason plaintiffs' attorneys might not be leaping for joy? They've got other things on their mind, say, for instance, who will end up on the steering committee to take the lead on the Toyota litigation now that the MDL panel of judges has selected a venue in Judge James V. Selna's courtroom in Santa Ana, Calif.

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on April 12, 2010 (boomark / email).