Toyota May Face Push to Reopen Rollover-Crash Cases
Sept. 1 (Bloomberg) — Toyota Motor Corp. may face demands that rollover-crash cases it won or settled be reopened, in light of accusations by a former company lawyer that the company hid records sought by plaintiffs.
The ex-Toyota lawyer, Dimitrios Biller, sued the company in July, claiming the world’s largest automaker and its U.S. units destroyed engineering and testing evidence relevant in more than 300 suits over sport-utility vehicle rollover accidents. Biller managed the electronic document-discovery program for Toyota, he said in court papers.
“The petition alleges conduct by Toyota that would cause every case ever resolved by Toyota in the past 10 years to be re-opened,” said Mikal Watts, a lawyer in Corpus Christi, Texas, referring to Biller’s suit. “We intend to ask the courts to re-open these lawsuits.”
Watts said Biller’s claims raise questions about the results of 10 other Toyota cases he handled. They include a trial he lost in Huntsville, Texas, over an accident that left a 6-year-old boy quadriplegic and dependent on a ventilator.
“A lot more information can be gleaned from electronic documents than paper,” said Sean Kane, co-founder of the advocacy group Safety Research & Strategies in Rehoboth, Massachusetts. “You are looking for who knew what and when.”
Biller, 46, said he worked from 2003 to 2008 managing records for Toyota litigation. He “suffered a complete mental and physical breakdown” battling company executives and finally resigned after objecting to Toyota’s insistence on hiding data, he said in a July 24 complaint in federal court in Los Angeles.
‘Systematic Practice’
“Defendants are, and have, engaged in a systematic pattern and practice of discovery abuses and criminal acts against plaintiffs in litigation against the Toyota entities,” according to Biller’s complaint.
Toyota has 27 million vehicles on the road, and rollovers “are a rare event,” Sona Iliffe-Moon, a U.S. Toyota spokeswoman, said by e-mail on Aug. 30. “The number of rollover claims by Mr. Biller pending at this time is many times less than the number claimed by Mr. Biller.”
Iliffe-Moon declined to comment on the specifics of Biller’s lawsuit or confirm his former status as national counsel for the Toyota rollover program. She also declined to comment on a $3.7 million settlement he said he received after claiming he was wrongfully discharged from Toyota. Biller attached a copy of the settlement agreement to his complaint.
Avoiding Obligations
“Toyota takes its legal obligations seriously and works to uphold high professional and ethical standards,” Iliffe-Moon said in another message. “We are disappointed that Mr. Biller has elected to file this lawsuit to attempt to avoid what we believe are his obligations as an attorney formerly employed by Toyota. Since this matter is in litigation, that’s all that we have to say at this time.”
“This is the kind of publicity no company wants,” said Rebecca Lindland, an analyst at auto industry forecaster IHS Global Insight Inc. in Lexington, Massachusetts. “If the allegations are true, it would violate the trust so many people put into Toyota.”
Toyota gained 0.8 percent to 4,020 yen at the close of trading in Tokyo.
The case is Biller v. Toyota Motor Corp., 2:09-cv-5429, U.S. District Court, Central District of California (Los Angeles).
To contact the reporter on this story: Laurence Viele Davidson in Atlanta at lviele@bloomberg.net.
Last Updated: September 1, 2009 05:24 EDT
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