Plaintiffs’ lawyers probe Toyota crashes

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Plaintiffs’ lawyers investigating a spate of serious crashes say Toyota’s massive safety recall earlier this month doesn’t address a potentially dangerous mechanical defect causing sudden, unexplained acceleration accidents.

Toyota Motors announced it is issuing a recall for at least 3.8 million Toyota and Lexus vehicles to fix a potential safety problem caused by removable floor mats jamming the accelerators.

The announcement followed a crash in August that killed four people riding in a Lexus ES 350 on a San Diego highway.

But several plaintiffs’ lawyers allege that a defective engine throttle control system — not floor mats interfering with gas pedals — is causing many accidents due to unintended acceleration. And removing floor mats won’t stop those accidents, they contend.

Donald H. Slavik, an engineer and attorney at Habush, Habush & Rottier, SC in Milwaukee, said initial investigations indicate that Toyota’s electronic throttle control system is a factor in several sudden, unintended acceleration accidents.

“Certainly in the older vehicles, the floor mats problem doesn’t seem to be the issue,” Slavik said.

Sean Kane, head of Safety Research & Strategies, a Rehoboth, Mass., consulting firm that works with plaintiffs’ lawyers, agreed.

“Are floor mats causing a number of unintended acceleration accidents? Yes. However, there are accidents outside the floor mat issue.”

Brookfield personal injury attorney Frank T. Pasternak suspects he owns a Lexus that is subject to the recall — but said he hadn’t heard the theory that a mechanical defect is a contributing factor in the accidents.

So far, Toyota and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration have identified floor mat interference as the only cause of unintended acceleration.

Kane said a group of personal injury lawyers around the country is investigating unexpected acceleration accidents involving Toyota vehicles.

Several of the cases involve fatalities after cars sped out of control and crashed.

“There is great interest in the litigation community in this issue,” Kane said.

Throttle control system problems

According to Kane, the problem appeared to increase beginning with the 2002 Camry, when Toyota installed a new electronic throttle control for a redesigned model.

Since then, problems have been reported in Camry, Camry Solara, Lexus ES 300 and ES 330s, Sienna, Tacoma and RAV4 vehicles, from years 2002 and later.

“There have been an enormous number of complaints from drivers,” Kane said.

Slavik filed suit last year in state court in California on behalf of Bulent Ezal, whose 2005 Camry sped off a cliff into the Pacific Ocean when he allegedly tried to park it at a Pismo Beach, Calif. restaurant. Ezal was seriously injured and his wife, Anne, was killed in the accident.

Slavik said he is investigating similar accidents involving Camrys, Siennas and Tacomas.

NHTSA said it had received reports of 102 incidents in which the accelerator may have become stuck in the Toyota vehicles involved, but that it was unclear how many led to crashes.

The recall will affect the following vehicles: 2007-10 Toyota Camry, 2005-10 Toyota Avalon, 2004-09 Toyota Prius, 2005-10 Toyota Tacoma, 2007-10 Toyota Tundra, 2007-10 Lexus ES 350 and 2006-10 Lexus IS 250 and IS 350.

The 2005 Camry is not among those being recalled. And Ezal’s car did not contain one of the removable floor mats cited in the recall.

String of incidents

Several attorneys said they hope NHTSA conducts a complete investigation. But they noted that NHTSA relies on information from manufacturers, and Toyota has been accused of being less than forthright about product liability issues.

McCune Wright, a Redlands, Calif. law firm, filed a class action in August on behalf of Dimitrius Biller, a former Toyota attorney who alleged that the company thwarted his efforts to preserve and produce evidence in hundreds of rollover cases against it.

The suit seeks to represent all plaintiffs who lost or settled cases in which Toyota allegedly concealed evidence.

In that case, a federal judge in Texas has ordered Toyota to preserve evidence about the crashworthiness of its vehicles.

Murphy & Prachthauser (http://www.murphyprachthauser.com/) attorney Thadd J. Llaurado noted that in the past, sudden acceleration cases, including those involving Audis in the 1970s, were more difficult to prove. But now cars are more reliant on computers.

“With the black box, I don’t know if that would have some bearing on analysis in these types of cases,” Llaurado said. “To have someone simply driving down the road going 60 and then 120 … You’d look for a rational explanation.”

The cause of last month’s fiery accident in San Diego is still under investigation. Mark Saylor, an off-duty California highway patrolman, and his wife, Cleofe, were killed in the Aug. 28 accident, along with their 13-year-old daughter, Mahala, and brother-in-law, Chris Lastrella.

The crash occurred after they reported to a 911 operator that they couldn’t stop their 2009 Lexus as it careened down a highway. In a tape of the call released in September, Lastrella told the operator that the car had no brakes. It plunged over an embankment and burst into flames.

In announcing the recall plans, Toyota said in a statement: “Recent events have prompted Toyota to take a closer look at the potential for an accelerator pedal to get stuck in the full open position due to an unsecured or incompatible driver’s floor mat. A stuck open accelerator pedal may result in very high vehicle speeds and make it difficult to stop the vehicle, which could cause a crash, serious injury or death.”