An expensive proceeding for the world’s largest automaker and the Japanese sales leader in the U.S., which is still trying to recover from a massive unintended acceleration recall.
After deliberating more than four days, a jury in Los Angeles decided that in a 2009 fatal Camry accident the Toyota was not at fault for unintended acceleration. In a potentially far-reaching product liability case about the design of Toyota vehicles, the jury rejected the claim of the family of Noriko Uno alleging that her fatal accident would not have happened if her vehicle had been equipped with brake override. Instead, the jury found Garo Mardirossian, the driver of the car that hit Mrs. Uno’s Camry, was at fault and he was ordered to pay a $10 million judgment.
In a Toyota engineering lapse of monumental consequences that included needless deaths and injuries, the engine control computer on millions of Toyota vehicles when confronted with both brake and accelerator inputs does not favor the brake input during operation of its electronic engine controls. Such over-ride software is in widespread use at other automakers. Toyota has subsequently fixed this glaring programming defect.
Toyota is taking the unusual step of publicizing the decision in the first case of the so-called Judicial Council Coordinated Proceeding because the lawsuit is thought by the judge in charge to be representative of almost 100 cases pending against the Japanese lawmaker for wrongful deaths and injuries.
The lack of local control by figurehead U.S. executives led to Toyota’s unintended acceleration fiasco when Japanese executives in Toyota City refused to acknowledge the problem and stonewalled what eventually became a recall millions of vehicles, but not before multiple deaths and needless injuries.
In 2010, the automaker agreed to pay $48.8 million as a result of three separate investigations into the automaker’s handling recalls. Toyota paid the fines for violations over pedal entrapment, sticky pedal and steering relay rod safety defects. (Read Toyota Settles Lawsuits for $1.1 Billion and Will Modify Millions of Vehicles with Electronically Controlled Gas Pedals to Stop Runaways)
Toyota has the dubious distinction of paying the largest fine in NHTSA history for covering up its problems with unintended acceleration. Toyota paid a $17.35 million fine in a case that resulted in Congressional hearings and allegations that NHTSA, the U.S. safety agency, was nothing but a “lapdog” of the auto industry. An embarrassed NHTSA has been more vigilant enforcing the regulations since then. (Read More Than 17.8 Million Safety Recalls During 2012 in U.S.)
“Regarding the verdict, we are gratified that the jury concluded the design of the 2006 Camry did not contribute to this unfortunate accident, affirming the same conclusion we reached after more than three years of careful investigation – that there was nothing wrong with the vehicle at issue in this case,” Toyota said in a statement.
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- Toyota Opens Two New Product Quality Field Offices in U.S.
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