Law and Rights
A lawyer who worked for Toyota says the manufacturer hid and destroyed evidence about accidents involving their vehicles from the courts, federal investigators and lawyers representing victims in lawsuits against the company.
Automotive News is reporting that Dimitrios Biller worked as an attorney for Toyota Motor Corp. for four years until 2007, including representing the automaker in accident litigation. In a lawsuit filed this summer in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, Biller said Toyota did not listen to his urgings to disclose all the evidence it had in rollover lawsuits or for National Highway Traffic Safety Administration regulations.
The lawsuit, a public record, was quickly met by an effort of Toyota to get the judge assigned to the case to "seal' the record so no one would see what Biller is saying. But for now, the court documents are public. And the possible existence of evidence that could harm Toyota in accident litigation has caused Dallas attorney Todd Tracy to plan to refile 15 rollover, frontal-impact and rear-impact suits against Toyota.
Tracy, who fought against Biller in Toyota cases, has said he can not imagine Biller is making it up and he's not the only attorney who is getting ready to refile their cases.
Meanwhile, what is Toyota's response? Toyota spokesman Mike Michels said the company was "concerned" with Biller's breach of attorney-client privilege and contracts in disclosing information from when he worked at Toyota.
Notice that they didn't deny hiding evidence, they didn't deny destroying evidence, they just said he shouldn't be allowed to tell anyone about it. The whole thing sounds like a lawyer with a conscience and most people would be quick to say there's nothing wrong with that.
Courts will be looking to see if the allegations are true and if they are, Toyota may face some huge penalties and fines and dozens of new lawsuits on old cases that they thought they had won already. And rightly so.
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Law and Rights
Toyota Hid Evidence About Liability, Their ExLawyer Says
A lawyer who worked for Toyota says the manufacturer hid and destroyed evidence about accidents involving their vehicles from the courts, federal investigators and lawyers representing victims in lawsuits against the company.
Automotive News is reporting that Dimitrios Biller worked as an attorney for Toyota Motor Corp. for four years until 2007, including representing the automaker in accident litigation. In a lawsuit filed this summer in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, Biller said Toyota did not listen to his urgings to disclose all the evidence it had in rollover lawsuits or for National Highway Traffic Safety Administration regulations.
The lawsuit, a public record, was quickly met by an effort of Toyota to get the judge assigned to the case to "seal' the record so no one would see what Biller is saying. But for now, the court documents are public. And the possible existence of evidence that could harm Toyota in accident litigation has caused Dallas attorney Todd Tracy to plan to refile 15 rollover, frontal-impact and rear-impact suits against Toyota.
Tracy, who fought against Biller in Toyota cases, has said he can not imagine Biller is making it up and he's not the only attorney who is getting ready to refile their cases.
Meanwhile, what is Toyota's response? Toyota spokesman Mike Michels said the company was "concerned" with Biller's breach of attorney-client privilege and contracts in disclosing information from when he worked at Toyota.
Notice that they didn't deny hiding evidence, they didn't deny destroying evidence, they just said he shouldn't be allowed to tell anyone about it. The whole thing sounds like a lawyer with a conscience and most people would be quick to say there's nothing wrong with that.
Courts will be looking to see if the allegations are true and if they are, Toyota may face some huge penalties and fines and dozens of new lawsuits on old cases that they thought they had won already. And rightly so.
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Subscribe in a reader- Toyota: "we Did Nothing Wrong But We'll Pay $32.4 Million More If The Us Stops Investigating What We Didn't Do"
Toyota has agreed to pay the US another $32,400,000 to shut down the US federal government's safety investigation of its self-acceleration problems and its failure to report the defect to US safety investigators timely. That's on top of the $16.4...
- Toyota's Troubles Give Freedom To Minnesota Man In Vehicular Homicide Case
Just off the wirepress, from St. Paul Pioneer Press newspaper, a Minnesota man's vehicular homicide conviction has been set aside because he was driving a Toyota Camry and the safety doubts about the car were not known at the time his car accelerated...
- Toyota's Problem And Why A Class Action May Not Work For You
The Toyota mess is, most certainly, a mess of royal proportions. It seems like a new "class action" lawsuit is being filed every couple of days. Reports are that there are at least 41 of them spread out across the country. But that may not be the best...
- Did Toyota Payoffs Stall The Gas Pedal Recall?
So, how do you stop a government investigator from investigating your company? Well, one way is to promise them a job or just plain hire them. Did Toyota do that to stall or stop federal investigators from looking too closely at their runaway acceleration...
- When Did Toyota Know Its Gas Pedals Were Bad?
AutoBlog.com has some serious and bad news about Toyota, the company whose quality and safety-commitment has not been seriously questioned in more years than most can recall. They quote the US Transportation Secretary, the same guy whose agency is in...