This past Friday, a federal jury in New York ruled that Toyota was not responsible for Dr. Amir Sitafalwalla’s car accident. The trial is big news because it is first of many regarding Toyota’s vehicles that were recalled for sudden acceleration. The jury was convinced that the driver caused the accident, not the defective floor mat. The driver’s personal injury lawyer sought compensation based largely on claims of electronic defects. However, the judge ruled out any evidence concerning electronic issues, which was a big win for Toyota. As a Pembroke Pines Personal Injury Attorney, I will give my thoughts on the verdict below.
That ruling about the evidence is probably in part because the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration previously reported that no electronic defects caused the sudden acceleration. Instead, the NHTSA ruled that the floor mats and sticky gas pedals were the most likely cause of the four deaths and at least 52 other car accidents. As a Pembroke Pines Car Accident Lawyer, it seems that Toyota was able to convince the jury to rule in its favor because of substantial testing and video evidence demonstrating how the floor mat was not a factor in the car accident. The jury needed less than an hour to rule in favor of Toyota, a somewhat surprising result to some people who were covering the car accident lawsuit.
Yet, this is just a small victory for Toyota, since the company is facing hundreds of lawsuits for car accidents that allegedly resulted from defective floor mats or sticky gas pedal issues. From a Pembroke Pines Car Accident Attorney’s perspective, the key in many of these cases will be to what degree the driver caused the accident versus to what degree the defective floor mats and gas pedals are to blame. It is up to each plaintiff’s personal injury attorney to present the evidence in the appropriate manner to demonstrate this point.
The other car accident lawsuits are also seeking compensation for such damages as economic loss and personal injury. This is the just the first case of a many more to come in the Toyota recall lawsuit process and it will be very interesting to see how each case plays out.
