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The Toyota Prosecutions Start

By Joe Consumer

Today, the Orange County, California District Attorney filed the first state (or federal) case against Toyota, this one against its U.S. sales division, Toyota Motor Sales USA -- "to enjoin them from continuing to endanger the public through the sale of defective vehicles and deceptive business practices." According to Reuters,  ?Toyota also faces a probe by the Securities and Exchange Commission and a criminal investigation by federal prosecutors.  Separately on Friday, Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal said he was pushing Toyota to investigate a pair of accidents involving Camrys in the state in the past week.?

Clearly, the legal troubles for Toyota are mounting.  This week the Associated Press reviewed the current class action cases filed against the company and found at least 89 claiming lost value ? at least 6 million people?which they say could cost $3 billion or more.  These cases do not include wrongful death and personal injury lawsuits.

Our friend Tom Baker at the University of Pennsylvania law school said that these class action lawsuits "are more scary for Toyota than the cases where people actually got injured. ? 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."

Another indication of how widespread this problem is, the federal judge assigned to many of these class actions owns a Toyota himself, and may even be included in the class actions.  We love how he put it: "The court owns a 2000 Toyota Avalon SLX. In addition, the adult son of the court who has not lived in the court's home for many years owns a 2005 Prius."

Whether you're a judge, or the adult son of the court who has not lived in the court's home for many years, or just an average motorist who might either own a Toyota or be driving in front of one on the New Jersey Turnpike this weekend, it?s important to keep up with the latest Toyota news, and we recommend that you follow the work of these two amazing groups: Center for Auto Safety and Safety Research and Strategies.

Full post as published by ThePopTort on March 12, 2010 (boomark / email).