Toyota will pony up $1.1 billion to make sudden-acceleration lawsuits go away, according to a proposal filed in federal court in Santa Ana today. As part of the largest settlement in U.S. history involving automobile defects, Toyota would send cash to eligible customers who sold or turned in their leased vehicles
in 2009 or 2010, launch a customer-support program providing coverage for certain vehicle
components and retrofit additional non-hybrid vehicle
models subject to a floor-mat recall with a free brake-override
system.
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The settlement must still be accepted by U.S. District Court Judge James V. Selna at Santa Ana's Reagan courthouse. Selna in June 2011 scheduled a trial to begin in February 2013.
And the same judge this past June issued a tentative sanction against the automaker for an inspection of a crashed 2008 Toyota Camry, with Selna writing the mechanics' check cast “a cloud of suspicion” over Toyota Motor Sales USA's behavior and that he would warn jurors to regard the testimony of Toyota personnel who were present at the Nov. 19, 2010, inspection with “greater caution than that of other witnesses.”
Judge Issues Tentative Sanction Against Toyota in Sudden-Acceleration Trial
“This agreement marks a significant step forward for our
company, one that will enable us to put more of our energy, time
and resources into Toyota's central focus: making the best
vehicles we can for our customers and doing everything we can to
meet their needs,” states Christopher P. Reynolds, vice president and
general counsel for Toyota's U.S. sales arm, in an email.
Plaintiff attorney Steve Berman reportedly told the Associated Press that it's “a
good settlement given the risks of this litigation.”
The Weekly in 2009 ran a cover story on problems drivers in Orange County and around the country were having with their Priuses.
Prius Drivers Have Discovered the Hybrid Car Can Take Them On an Unexpected Adventure
We've also kept up with the twists and turns of the case in Selna's courtroom, as well as a separate, yet-to-be resolved action the Orange County District Attorney's office filed against Toyota.
OC Weekly Toyota sudden-acceleration archives
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OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.