AP IMPACT: In Toyota cases, evasion becomes tactic (questionable, evasive and deceptive)

[Omaha Steve]

Source: AP

By CURT ANDERSON and DANNY ROBBINS

MIAMI (AP) -- Toyota has routinely engaged in questionable, evasive and deceptive legal tactics when sued, frequently claiming it does not have information it is required to turn over and sometimes even ignoring court orders to produce key documents, an Associated Press investigation shows.

In a review of lawsuits filed around the country involving a wide range of complaints - not just the sudden acceleration problems that have led to millions of Toyotas being recalled - the automaker has hidden the existence of tests that would be harmful to its legal position and claimed key material was difficult to get at its headquarters in Japan. It has withheld potentially damaging documents and refused to release data stored electronically in its vehicles.

For example, in a Colorado product liability lawsuit filed by a man whose young daughter was killed in a 4Runner rollover crash, Toyota withheld documents about internal roof strength tests despite a federal judge's order that such information be produced, according to court records. The attorneys for Jon Kurylowicz now say such documents might have changed the outcome of the case, which ended in a 2005 jury verdict for Toyota.

"Mr. Kurylowicz went to trial without having been given all the relevant evidence and all the evidence the court ordered Toyota to produce," attorney Stuart Ollanik wrote in a new federal lawsuit accusing Toyota of fraud in the earlier case. "The Kurylowicz trial was not a fair trial."

Read more: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_TOYOTA_LEGAL_TACTICS?SITE=NCJAC&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

[boppers]

1. One of their own turned against them:

"Similar claims have been lodged by Dimitrios Biller, a former Toyota attorney who sued the company in August, contending it withheld evidence in considerably older rollover cases."

Looks like some reckoning will be in order.