"Legal Armada" Against Toyota Begins: Remember Who The "Bad Guys" Are

I have been reading through a mountain of articles and blogs about Toyota’s recent quality problems. Their main "quality problem" is a reported "sudden acceleration" issue; accelerators get stuck in a depressed position and their cars speed up and go out of control resulting in crashes. People are getting seriously hurt and/or killed in accidents caused by these quality issues. Remember what the core problem is: Toyota has been making inferior quality, dangerous cars! It has recalled the significant portion of its brand, almost every car it has made for the past several years. The scope of this recall is enormous, perhaps unprecedented.

Why am I picking on Toyota? Why am I asking you to remember what the core problem is and who caused it (Toyota, remember?)? Because the legal poop is about to hit the fan and as sure as I am sitting in front of my computer and typing this post, the public relations tide will shift, and pro-insurance, pro-big business pundits will start criticizing the victims and their lawsuits; their lawyers will receive enormous criticism.

The National Law Journal reports that a "legal armada" is about to set sail against Toyota. 6.5 million vehicles have just been recalled for one problem or another related to accelerators. Toyota has known about and lied about these problems for quite a while. As attorney Tim Howard, a professor at Northeastern University in Boston says:

"There are damages among consumers because no matter what happens here, the cars that people bought will be worth less, whether there’s a quick fix or a long fix. The more severe thing is they could have resolved this problem six months ago or a year ago, and instead required the NHTSA to fly to Japan to get their attention. They were not taking this seriously."

Thus, there will be a legal battle mounted on two fronts: Damages are due to people who have been seriously injured and/or killed. Damages are due to non-injured people who have suffered economic loss because of the negative effect Toyota’s quality problems will have on the after market. Remember, these are issues caused by Toyota and Toyota alone.

Soon, you will start to hear about multiple class action lawsuits, personal injury lawsuits, wrongful death lawsuits, consumer safety lawsuits, fraud lawsuits, consumer protection lawsuits, financial damages lawsuits and others. Pro-business, pro-insurance forces will argue that the legal challenge is excessive, that seriously injured people, the surviving family members of those killed by these dangerous, poorly made vehicles, and their attorneys are "greedy". They will argue that the cost is too much. They will argue that enough is enough. They will argue that the legal system is broken and needs reform, that too many people are receiving too much money. They will argue that the lawyers are only out to get large fees. They will lobby congress for more restrictions on victims’ rights.

Remember this: Toyota caused these problems. Fear of lawsuits is a big reason why they have agreed to attempt to fix them. The single largest deterrent to continued safety violations is the threat of a lawsuit. The victims here are blameless; they bought vehicles from the largest car manufacturer in the world, the one that has always prided itself on safety. They were lied to about Toyota’s safety record; they were lied to when they complained about the problems they were experiencing, and they paid dearly, with injured body parts and death. Will lawyers make an enormous amount of money handling these cases? Yes, they probably will. But they didn’t cause this mess; Toyota did, and championing the rights of victims of such a serious breach of care, warranty, and trust is a noble undertaking, worthy of public acclaim.

The skilled lawyers who achieve success for their clients in the upcoming battle against this automobile giant are heroes; they pursue justice for the innocent and demand that manufacturers make safe products. They are, in essence, the "safety police". Remember that. Lawyers didn’t ask for this battle; Toyota handed it to them on a silver platter by making substandard, dangerous vehicles and then lying about it. So, prepare for more lies when the corporate public relations machine gets rolling: "It was the victims fault"! "The injuries aren’t that bad!" "That’s just too much money!" "The attorneys fees are too large" "All of these lawsuits are hurting the economy!" As the years go by, remember my warning. Print this post and tape it to your refrigerator. Pro-business pundits will blame the victims, critcize the lawsuits, demonize the lawyers and seek pity for one of the richest companies in the world, the one that made the dangerous and defective vehicles and lied about it. Remember who caused all of the problems in the first place. Yes, clearly, it was Toyota.

Lawsuit Financial, the pro-justice lawsuit funding company would like to hear from you. What do you think?