OC Lawsuit Claims Toyota Hid Defect Evidence

Santa Ana - Orange County District Attorney Tony Rackauckas announced today his office is partnering with a private law firm to sue Torrance-based Toyota Motor Sales USA for allegedly selling defective vehicles and deceptive business practices.

He claims the company knowingly sold and leased hundreds of thousands of cars and trucks with defects causing uncontrollable acceleration, and that he is the first county prosecutor in the country to file a consumer protection lawsuit against Toyota.

"We'll be alleging in court on behalf of the people Orange County that Toyota knowingly sold cars and trucks with defects that caused Toyotas to accelerate suddenly and uncontrollably," Rackauckas said.

"These defects exist in hundreds of thousands of Toyotas sold to Californians over the last several years. Toyota has known about these defects but intentionally did not disclose them to California purchasers. Rather than halt the sales of products in California until the problem was fixed, they made a business decision to continue selling and leasing their defective products to Californians."

He said he will seek an injunction and civil penalties of $2,500 for every violation of the Unfair Business Practices Act.

Toyota has recalled millions of vehicles and halted sales of several models due to problems with accelerators that can become stuck, causing the vehicles to accelerate unexpectedly. More recently, the company recalled some Toyota Prius models due to problems with the braking system.

The company has issued a series of apologies for the acceleration issues.

The series of recalls began as a result of the high-speed crash of a 2009 Lexus ES350 near San Diego in August, killing a California Highway Patrol officer and three members of his family. The car struck a sport utility vehicle while traveling at speeds of 120 mph, tumbled off an embankment and burst into flames.

A family member in the Lexus called 911 before the crash, saying the accelerator was stuck and the driver couldn't stop the car.

Rackauckas said he is filing the lawsuit because Toyota does business in Orange County, and that the suit is based on California law. He also said he needed to partner with a law firm in order to combat the fleet of lawyers he expects Toyota to employ.

"I can't take prosecutors away from prosecuting murderers and gang members in order to put them into even this important consumer fraud case," he said. "We all know that as soon as we file suit against the world's largest most successful car corporation that they're going to be parachuting lawyers in with all kinds of legal tactics up their sleeves. We need the assistance of a law firm with expertise in these types of cases to help us defend against the barrage of legal attacks we're going to see, and we expect that from this gigantic international corporation.

"Believe me they'll spare no expense. They'll hire an army of lawyers from all over and from big firms," he said.