The new legal strategy focuses on the slow adoption of Toyota of brake control systems, which lawyers say is the automaker's largest individual vulnerability, as it defends against more than 100 lawsuits in state courts and federal.
Toyota cancellations discussed the adoption of brake federal securities regulators as early as 2007, records show. However, the automaker did not begin installation until last year, after issuing massive recalls linked to the sudden acceleration problem.
"We are in a good position from the standpoint of litigation, it was not a reasonable alternative security and Toyota has not been chosen for inclusion," said Donald Slavik, a Milwaukee attorney in charge of four claims against automaker and is on the steering committee of personal injury cases in federal court and state court in California.
Slavik and plaintiffs' counsel of others who previously focused on the potential flaws in the electronic throttle control. Slavik said that although lawyers still think vehicles with electronic defects that can cause a sudden acceleration, "our case everything does not rely on it."
Toyota spokesman Mike Michels said the new strategy raises the question of why they are abandoning their basic arguments and reach a new one. " He suggested it could be because applicants may have difficulty proving electronic defects exist.
"We look forward to the time they are forced to specify exactly what is defective, a backup of reliable scientific evidence and not speculation," said Michels.
Lawyers are seeking unspecified damages against the Japanese automaker, claiming that Toyota and Lexus vehicles prone to unintended acceleration caused hundreds of injuries and deaths in accidents during the last decade. Toyota has installed at least one case so far, the $ 10 million to the families of four people killed when a Lexus ES accelerated out of control near San Diego in 2009.
Brake annulment is a fail-safe device that automatically releases the throttle when it detects a car on-board computer that the brake is pressed. Designed for vehicles with electronic throttle control, using cables and software instead of mechanical cables to connect the throttle pedal to the engine, which has been available for nearly a decade.
Other automakers, including Nissan, Volkswagen, BMW and Chrysler have been using brake control for years. Lawyers for the plaintiffs, said, combined with the safety statistics of government data bases that show lower levels of sudden acceleration complaints for vehicles with brake control will be essential to their cases.
The lawyers also plan to include company documents indicating that Toyota resisted efforts by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to install the technology.
The company e-mails and memos obtained by Congress show that NHTSA researchers approached Toyota about installing a brake controller in August 2007. The following year, the automaker has commissioned a feasibility study of internal technology.
"Toyota has a legal problem only with the lack of brake control system," said Raymond Paul Johnson, a Los Angeles lawyer who represents a man who says that a defect in its Camry 2005 was to accelerate a cliff in Pismo Beach , California., killing his wife.
This position received a boost last month from U.S. District Judge James Selna, which is responsible for most federal cases against Toyota. By denying Toyota's efforts to dismiss most of the charges against him, Selna noted "the absence of a brake control system."
The lawyers are also likely to point to the $ 48.8 million in fines that Toyota has committed to pay from April to the Department of Transportation for failing to notify regulators immediately or delay defects recalls. They said that suggests a clear pattern of ignoring or downplaying the important security issues.
Edgar Heiskell, who is representing the family of a Michigan woman died when her Camry hit a tree, said he had taken statements from Toyota employees admit to knowing about brake technology budget for the year. "It's the most obvious defect," he said.
Toyota says that even with the brake control, many accidents could not have been avoided, and that cancellation systems are being installed in all models now as an "extra measure of confidence."
Cancellation of brake only works when the foot is on the brake, "said Michels said.
The automaker acknowledges that some of their vehicles had mats that could trap the accelerator pedal and the gas pedals that could stick and leave the throttle open. But said that many of the incidents described in the trials suggest that some other problem was at fault as drivers of bad pedal inadvertently.
A full report from NASA on the causes of sudden acceleration that is expected early this year.
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