SANTA ANA, Calif. (AP) - A federal judge in California said
Friday he will not dismiss lawsuits against Toyota from car owners
who claim sudden-acceleration defects caused the value of the
vehicles to plummet.
U.S. District Judge James Selna said in a 63-page ruling that he
believes suits filed by car owners who say the value of their
vehicles plummetted after a series of recalls by the Japanese
automaker can move forward. Selna said he will issue a final ruling
within a week.
A hearing over a similar motion to dismiss lawsuits that seek
compensation for injury and death due to sudden acceleration will
be held in front of Selna on Dec. 9.
Hundreds of lawsuits have been filed since the automaker
starting recalling millions of vehicles because of acceleration
problems in several models and brake defects with the Prius hybrid.
Toyota maintains the plaintiffs have been unable to prove that a
design defect - namely its electronic throttle control system - is
responsible for vehicles surging unexpectedly. It has blamed driver
error, faulty floor mats and sticky accelerator pedals for the
unintended acceleration.
Toyota attorneys sought to convince Selna that more than two
dozen lawsuits should be thrown out because the plaintiffs haven't
suffered any economic loss or they haven't spent money to fix their
vehicles. Lawyer Cari Dawson noted in several of the suits that
Toyota owners continue to drive their vehicles even though they
have made allegations against the company.
By allowing the suits to remain, "would open the floodgates in
federal court to people who don't have a financial loss," Dawson
said. "Their allegations are 'I own a (Toyota) car."'
Plaintiffs' attorney Steve Berman said outside of court that
people who bought Toyota vehicles believed they were buying a safe
product and those who didn't experience unintended acceleration
still have a claim.
"Our argument is you don't have to wait for the time bomb to go
off," he said.
The company has recalled more than 10 million vehicles worldwide
over the last year. The National Highway Traffic Safety
Administration said it has received about 3,000 reports of sudden
acceleration from Toyota drivers in the past decade, including 93
deaths. The government, however, has confirmed only four deaths
from one crash.
In September, the company paid an undisclosed amount to settle a
lawsuit with the relatives of four people killed last year in a
high-speed crash near San Diego when a driver was unable to stop a
runaway Lexus. The incident galvanized attention around possible
safety flaws in some Toyota models.
Toyota said in a statement that Selna's tentative ruling
required an assumption that the plaintiffs' allegations are true,
but as the case progresses, evidence will show that its electronic
throttle control system is safe.
"The burden is now squarely on plaintiffs' counsel to prove
their allegations and Toyota is confident that no such proof
exists," the company said.

(Copyright 2010 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)