Toyota settles unintended acceleration wrongful death claim

Many people know that there are certain risks associated with driving. Things such as severe weather and others on the road not exercising due caution behind the wheel can make driving dangerous. People do not often consider that their vehicles may pose the biggest threat to their safety on the road. When auto manufacturers make defective vehicles it often leads to auto accidents. On January 18, 2013, Toyota Motor Corp. announced that it had reached a settlement in the first of a number of lawsuits that alleged that defects in Toyota vehicles caused accidents.

Unintended acceleration

In June of 2012, Toyota Motor Corp. issued a recall of its 2010 model year Lexus RX 350 and RX 450h vehicles due to reports that people were having problems with their vehicles suddenly accelerating when the drivers did not mean to do so. Consumers also reported problems with accelerators in other models of Toyotas, as well as brake problems in the Prius.

Toyota faced hundreds of wrongful death and personal injury lawsuits stemming from accidents that people had with their Toyotas. The company had initially settled one wrongful death suit in 2010 for $10 million, then the rest of the lawsuits were consolidated in a California district court.

The first of the consolidated cases was set to go to trial in February 2013, and many speculated that the case would be a good indication of how the rest of the cases would be resolved. However, Toyota reached a settlement with the nine plaintiffs who brought the suit who lost loved ones when a Camry suddenly accelerated while exiting a freeway, crashing through a stop sign while running through an intersection and eventually crashing into a wall.

Record fines

In addition to the lawsuits filed against Toyota, the company also agreed to a settlement with the federal government for failure to report known vehicle defects to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and issue a recall within the five-day period that federal safety regulations require. The NHTSA fined Toyota $17.35 million, the highest fine ever for a recall violation.

Wrongful death claims

In order to recover in a wrongful death action in California, a person must show that the negligent or willful act of another caused the deceased's death and that the person filing the suit suffered a loss because of the death. The loss plaintiffs must prove includes both economic losses such as the income the deceased contributed and the value of the labor the deceased did around the house, as well as emotional loss.

Wrongful death claims can be complicated and need to be handled by a skilled attorney with a history of successfully recovering for those who have lost loved ones due to another's negligence.

Article provided by Arata, Swingle, Sodhi & Van Egmond
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Toyota settles unintended acceleration wrongful death claim

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