Southern California prosecutors filed the first US consumer protection lawsuit against Toyota Motor Corp on on Friday, claiming it had engaged in “fraud” by hiding evidence of dangerous vehicle defects.
Orange County District Attorney Tony Rackauckas said his office along with private attorneys sued the US sales arm of Toyota, charging that the world’s top-selling automaker has endangered the public with defective vehicles, and engaged in deceptive business practices.
“Against this backdrop of fraud and concealment, Toyota has for decades touted its reputation for safety and reliability and knew that people bought its vehicles because of that reputation and yet purposefully chose to conceal and suppress the existence and nature of defects,” the 18-page lawsuit filed on Friday morning said.
PHOTO: AFP
The suit seeks to keep Toyota “from continuing to endanger the public through the sale of defective vehicles and deceptive business practices.”
A Toyota spokesman said the company had no immediate comment.
Toyota has recalled more than 8 million vehicles globally to address the risk that accelerator pedals on a range of its vehicles could become stuck because of a loose floor mat or a glitch in the pedal assembly.
Unintended acceleration in the company’s Toyota and Lexus vehicles has been linked to at least five US crash deaths since 2007. Authorities are investigating reports alleging 47 other fatalities over the past decade.
The suit charges that Toyota knew about the defects in “selling and leasing hundreds of thousands of cars and trucks with defects that caused sudden unexpected and uncontrollable acceleration.”
Rackauckas, a Republican, is up for re-election this year.
Meanwhile, a Norwegian driver lost control of his Toyota Prius, which tore off at speeds of up to 176kph, police and the Japanese auto firm said on Friday.
The driver said the accelerator pedal stuck and he had to hit a roadside safety rail to stop the car in the latest embarrassing incident for Toyota, which has included the Prius in its vehicle recall.
Toyota rushed a team to the scene to examine the car.
“It is too early to pronounce on the reason for the incident. It would be dangerous to speculate too much,” Toyota Norway spokesman Espen Olsen said.
“But we intend to shed all light on this story,” he said.
It was the first reported incident of its kind in Norway.
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