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Class-action lawsuits could cost Toyota $3B-plus
yahoo news ^ | 3-9-10 | CURT ANDERSON and GREG BLUESTEIN, Associated Press Writers

Posted on 03/09/2010 7:45:30 AM PST by cajuncow

MIAMI – Toyota owners claiming that massive safety recalls are causing the value of their vehicles to plummet have filed at least 89 class-action lawsuits that could cost the Japanese auto giant $3 billion or more, according to an Associated Press review of cases, legal precedent and interviews with experts.

Those estimates do not include potential payouts for wrongful death and injury lawsuits, which could reach in the tens of millions each. Still, the sheer volume of cases involving U.S. Toyota owners claiming lost value — 6 million or more — could prove far more costly, adding up to losses in the billions for the automaker.

(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...


TOPICS: News/Current Events
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1 posted on 03/09/2010 7:45:30 AM PST by cajuncow
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To: cajuncow

Let’s see, class action, $3B. The legal team gets $2.9B, and the Toyota owners involved get a free oil change.

Has John Edwards been called yet?


2 posted on 03/09/2010 7:47:11 AM PST by brownsfan (The average American: Uninformed, and unconcerned.)
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To: cajuncow

Hey, you buy a new car, you lose money. What sort of an Obama voter does not understand that?


3 posted on 03/09/2010 7:50:16 AM PST by caver (Obama: Home of the Whopper)
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To: cajuncow
I may be just a conspiracy nut, but my gut feeling is that this was a set up to drive Toyota out of the US market, forcing us to buy only government approved union-built automobiles. Honda and Nissan will probably be next.

Then again, maybe Toyota was entirely at fault and I need to sit back, be quiet, and spend more time polishing my tin-foil hat.

4 posted on 03/09/2010 7:51:08 AM PST by scan59 (Markets always regulate better than government can.)
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To: scan59

You were right first time.


5 posted on 03/09/2010 7:52:27 AM PST by agere_contra
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To: agere_contra

Toyota may just start a new auto company as it did when they were Datsun.


6 posted on 03/09/2010 7:56:42 AM PST by shadeaud ("If you can't beat them, arrange to have them beaten." -- George Carlin)
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To: agere_contra

“You were right first time.”

More likely a perfect storm for Toyota. Toyota has been getting sloppy. It happens to most businesses that grow to unmanagable size... IBM, Sony, Toyota.
It’s Toyota’s misfortune to have a legitimate flaw surface at a time when the US government entered the auto business. The hype and hysteria are definately government endorsed. But, Toyota has a helped to create this mess.


7 posted on 03/09/2010 7:57:04 AM PST by brownsfan (The average American: Uninformed, and unconcerned.)
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To: scan59

Runaway Toyota Prius reached 90 mph-Calif police

LOS ANGELES, March 9 (Reuters) - The driver of a 2008 Toyota Prius said his car uncontrollably accelerated to over 90 miles per hour on a San Diego County freeway before a California Highway Patrol officer helped him stop the car, police said.

The driver, 61-year-old James Sikes, was not injured in the Monday incident, which is another claim of unintended acceleration that has caused the greatest image crisis for Toyota Motor Corp (7203.T) (TM.N) in its history.

The incident occurred in the same county where an off-duty California Highway Patrol trooper and three family members were killed last August in an incident that brought the issue to national attention and led to the first major recall over unintended acceleration.

Sikes said he had received a recall notice to take his car into a Toyota dealership, but when he did, he was told that his car was not on recall lists, the San Diego Union-Tribune reported. The automaker has not recalled the 2008 Prius.

On Monday afternoon, Sikes overtook another car on Interstate 8 near San Diego, and then the Prius accelerated beyond his control, the highway patrol said.

For the next 20 minutes, Sikes sped 30 miles along the freeway, he said.

“I pushed the gas pedal to pass a car and it did something kind of funny,” Sikes said at a Monday press conference. “It jumped and it just stuck there. As it was going, I was trying the brakes ... It wasn’t stopping.”

Sikes called the local 911 emergency service, and the highway patrol dispatched Todd Niebert. The trooper pulled alongside the Prius and used his cruiser’s loudspeaker to tell Sikes use the emergency and regular brakes and to turn off the car’s engine.

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN0922898720100309?type=marketsNews


8 posted on 03/09/2010 7:57:25 AM PST by kcvl
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To: shadeaud

“Toyota may just start a new auto company as it did when they were Datsun.”

Nissan was Datsun.


9 posted on 03/09/2010 7:57:40 AM PST by brownsfan (The average American: Uninformed, and unconcerned.)
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To: shadeaud
Toyota may just start a new auto company as it did when they were Datsun.

Nissan used to be Datsun.

10 posted on 03/09/2010 7:58:08 AM PST by N. Theknow (Kennedys: Can't fly, can't ski, can't drive, can't skipper a boat, but they know what's best.)
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To: scan59
I may be just a conspiracy nut, but my gut feeling is that this was a set up to drive Toyota out of the US market, forcing us to buy only government approved union-built automobiles. Honda and Nissan will probably be next.

You are absolutely correct.

You don't have to be a "conspiracy nut" to see this one. It's pure, unadulterated, Chicago thuggery in action.

Just because there are conspiracy nuts does not mean that there are no conspiracies.

Toyota should be suing the Fed Gov over this, along with complicit Legacy Media outlets. This is arbitrary and capricious abuse of power and defamation on steroids.

Every car manufacturer has had recalls, but they purposely targeted Toyota for an attack.

That's obscenely wrong.

Media outlets have now been caught in outright fraud and fakery on multiple occasions when putting out these hit pieces.

The bad guys need to pay.

11 posted on 03/09/2010 7:58:10 AM PST by TChris ("Hello", the politician lied.)
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To: kcvl

Sikes would have been safer in his corvette!


12 posted on 03/09/2010 8:02:08 AM PST by Dr. Ursus
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To: cajuncow

Can a lot of Toyota cars really have something about them that makes them speed up spontaneously and also cripple the brakes? These are machines and I hear nothing about the machinery involved. Wouldn’t a court need an explanation of a flaw in Toyota’s machinery in order to find them at fault? Hasn’t Toyota said that some of the reported misbehaviors are not possible? If so then they must give a good reason why. I’m a Toyota supporter but they’re not doing a good job of defending themselves. Maybe they don’t know what’s going on and don’t want to say things they can’t prove. Wonder if any Toyota employees, especially test engineers, have experienced the problems that have been reported.


13 posted on 03/09/2010 8:10:38 AM PST by frposty (I'm a simpleton)
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To: cajuncow

The same ol Alinsky tactic they pulled on Bush, and Palin...lawfare war...sue til they are in debt so bad they can’t get out. Economic jihad.


14 posted on 03/09/2010 8:12:04 AM PST by Freddd (CNN is down to Three Hundred Thousand viewers. But they worked for it.)
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To: shadeaud

Atoyot


15 posted on 03/09/2010 9:50:30 AM PST by Vaduz
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