Rollover suit just one of Toyota's headaches

Allegations by a former Toyota lawyer that the company withheld and destroyed rollover evidence are only part of the automaker's litigation woes in the United States.

Dimitrios Biller, a Toyota Motor Corp. attorney from 2003 to 2007, filed a suit this summer in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles. In the suit, he contends that Toyota did not heed his urgings to disclose all evidence related to more than 300 rollover suits.

Biller's case prompted the refiling of some former accident litigation against the automaker. Plaintiffs' attorneys say his allegations, if true, will call into question Toyota's defense in past cases.

For instance, California attorney Richard McCune has refiled a suit in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles seeking class-action status for two rollover suits. And attorneys Todd Tracy and Joe Clayton filed a suit last week in U.S. District Court in Marshall, Texas, grouping 16 dismissed or settled cases.

Toyota also faces a patent violation complaint filed this month by Paice, a company to which the automaker already paid royalties for patent infringement in the second-generation Prius and the Highlander Hybrid and Lexus RX 400h crossovers.

Toyota in court
Toyota is facing legal attacks on at least 3 fronts.
1. A former in-house attorney alleges the automaker destroyed or withheld rollover evidence.
2. Paice, a company that holds a hybrid-related patent that Toyota already has violated, says the automaker continues to do so in other products.
3. Four wrongful-death cases allege Toyota knew its steering columns were breaking in the United States but did nothing for years.
Source: Government and court documents

More hybrids disputed

In this month's complaint, Paice requests a U.S. government ban on importation of additional vehicles that it alleges violate the same patent, such as the Toyota Camry Hybrid, the third-generation Prius, the Lexus HS 250h sedan and Lexus RX 450h crossover.

Paice says the component in question combines torque from an electric motor and an internal combustion engine. The Bonita Springs, Fla., company has acquired a handful of U.S. patents for hybrid technology.

In 2005, Toyota was found to have violated one of Paice's patents, although not willfully.

A Toyota statement referencing this month's complaint says Paice is apparently seeking to bypass a court ruling that had denied the company's requests to limit Toyota imports.

In a third set of lawsuits, Toyota faces four consolidated wrongful-death cases in Los Angeles Superior Court alleging that the automaker failed to promptly recall pickups and SUVs equipped with defective steering rods.

In October 2005, Toyota recalled 1990-95 4Runners, 1989-95 small pickups and 1993-98 T100 pickups because of the steering rods. But the suits allege the company knew of the problem long before that.

In the suits, Toyota Motor North America says it was unaware of complaints about the faulty steering rods in the United States in October 2004 when it informed the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration of a similar recall in Japan a year earlier.

But John Kristensen, a lawyer representing the plaintiffs in all four cases, says the automaker had nearly 100 U.S. warranty claims for broken relay rods before the Japanese recall.

Steering failure

The court filings include a letter to the Toyota legal department in Torrance, Calif., dated March 26, 2002, from Yigal Schacht in New York City. He said the steering on his 1997 T100 failed that February while he was exiting his driveway.

In response, Toyota Motor North America says customer complaints about Toyota vehicles go to a different entity, Toyota Motor Sales.

Superior Court Judge Conrad Aragon will consider Toyota's motion to dismiss the suits Oct. 8.

Toyota spokesman Mike Michels said the three sets of suits are not related. "It is unusual and coincidental to have several pieces of litigation come to public attention in a short time period," he said in an e-mail.

Toyota has declined to comment on the wrongful-death suits. But the automaker has spoken out against Biller's suit, calling his allegations "inaccurate and misleading."

The automaker says Biller is violating attorney-client privilege and nondisclosure conditions of his exit agreement, which included a $3.7 million severance payment.

Biller also has filed a wrongful-termination and discrimination suit against his most recent employer, Los Angeles County.