As a result of the fallout of Toyota’s recall of 3.8 million vehicles this past September, many Toyota owners or their surviving family members are filing individual and class action personal injury lawsuits.
Owners maintain the gas pedals on their cars get stuck, causing the vehicle to accelerate out of control. The story got national attention last August when an off-duty police officer in California died after he lost control of a Lexus E350 he was test driving. After the company’s massive recall in September, the New York Times ran a story saying the company knew about the problem of defective floor mats for over 2 years.
But parties to one class action lawsuit maintain the floor mats aren’t the only problem. These plaintiffs maintain there’s a problem with the vehicles’ throttle control system, which should have a safety feature that throws the engine into idle mode in case of unintended acceleration.
Therefore in late November, the company said it would also replace the gas pedals in the vehicles it recalled in September. And earlier this month, the company issued a recall for 2.3 million Toyotas for this problem, including 600,000 that were not part of the original recall.
In light of these lawsuits and continuing problems with accelerator pedals, Toyota has taken the unprecedented step of halting production and sales on the affected vehicles until the problem is resolved.
According to Bloomberg, seven individual lawsuits and three class action ones have been filed thus far.
If you have one of the affected models, have it looked at immediately. And if you’ve been adversely affected by a defective automobile part like this, contact Denver car accident attorney R. Mack Babcock today to discuss your legal options.
