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Toyota Recall and the Value of Personal Injury Liability

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By now, just about everybody has heard about Toyota’s recall of some 3,800,000 vehicles to replace the floor mats which were defective and cause the accelerator of a Toyota vehicle to stick. As a result of this defect, Troy Johnson was killed in an automobile accident. That story has apparently been overlooked, and it did not prompt Toyota to issue its largest recall ever in the US. That would take another 4 deaths.

The answer is the risk of liability in future product liability and personal injury lawsuits. Without the right to file such a lawsuit against corporations and individuals such as Toyota for distributing and manufacturing dangerous products that put people’s lives at risk, those corporations and individuals would have no financial incentive to make their products safer.

Toyota recently disclosed to the US government that it is sent mail to owners of several Toyota vehicles, including the Prius hybrid, the Camry, and requested the owners to remove the floor mats from the driver’s side of the automobile, and not to replace them. Toyota stated that the accelerator may become stuck when the floor mat is incompatible or unsecured, which causes the car to accelerate at high speeds, making it difficult to stop, and raises the possibility of causing the passengers and driver to be killed or seriously injured as a result of an automobile accident.

The widow of Troy Johnson told news outlets recently that she wants Toyota to fix the problem now. She also asked the question which defines the decision to recall a vehicle; How many people have to die before Toyota takes this seriously?

Apparently, Toyota’s answer is 5. Mr. Johnson was killed in an automobile accident in 2007, when his car was hit from behind by a 2007 Toyota Camry that had a gas pedal which had allegedly gotten stuck by a floor mat which was defective. The Toyota Camry was travelling at approximately 120 mph when it crashed into Mr. Johnson’s vehicle, caught fire, and killed him instantly. In 2008, Toyota agreed to settle Mr. Johnson’s personal injury and product liability lawsuit. However, it appears that one death was not enough to cause Toyota to initiate a recall.

In 2009, 4 more people were killed in a similar high speed accident. In this accident, a man, his wife, his brother in law, and his 13 year old daughter were killed in an automobile accident. It was only after this accident that Toyota began initiating a recall. Hopefully, the family of these 4 family members will retain an experienced product liability and personal injury to represent their interests, if they have not already done so. There is no doubt that the civil liability exposure is what prompted Toyota to issue a recall.

Maybe if Toyota had initiated a recall following Mr. Johnson’s death, it would have saved 4 other lives. Only the Toyota lawyers, researchers, executives, and engineers have the answer to that. However, the bottom line is that Toyota’s recognition their exposure to substantial civil liability as a result of future accidents caused by floor mats which are defective resulted in the recall.

As a personal injury lawyers, we at Ledger and Associates are proud to represent people who have been injured and the families of people who have lost a loved one as a result of a defective automobile or part, and to play an integral role in making corporations and individuals act responsibly and distribute safe products. Hopefully, Toyota will be able to notify most, if not all, of the 3,800,000 US automobile owners of the recall, and prevent another person from being killed or seriously injured as result of a floor mat that is defective. For a free consultation with one of our product liability and personal injury lawyers contact Ledger and Associates at 1-800-300-0001 or at LedgerLaw.com.

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Beware the Statute of Limitations in a Wrongful Death Case

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Losing someone you love in an accident is never easy, never expected and never forgotten. If the accident was caused by the negligence of another person, in other words a wrongful death, then it is even harder to handle. The unanswered questions, the what-ifs, the regret and grief. Even though it is hard to get on with lift after someone dies, it needs to be done for yourself, your family and in the name and memory of your loved one.  This is the time to call a wrongful death attorney and discuss your options.

Don’t wait to call an attorney or you may lose the option to sue at all, particularly if the accident involved a government entity. In cases that do involve a government entity, you may have less than six months to file a claim. This isn’t a lot of time and if you want to file for wrongful death damages, you will need to act quickly. If the accident was a bad one and there is the likelihood of a significant wrongful death lawsuit settlement, this is all the more reason to file quickly to allow the wrongful death attorney the time to prepare a case – either to take to negotiation for a settlement or to court for a trial.

A wrongful death is quite evident based on the circumstances of the accident your family member was in, the evidence at the scene and the in-depth investigation of the crash by forensics specialists. Eyewitness testimony is also helpful, if it is available, and in some cases, it isn’t. The most important element of proving a case like this is that there is negligence or wanton recklessness involved, and but for those actions, the deceased would still be alive.

Most often the people who are eligible to file wrongful death damages are the spouse and children of the deceased. Having said that, if there is no spouse or children, or if they were also in the accident, then the next people who may file a civil wrongful death suit is a domestic partner, stepchildren, parents, grandchildren or a putative spouse. A putative spouse is a person who has lived another person, but they are not legally married.

This is a very complex area of the law and having a wrongful death attorney in your corner representing your interests and that of your family is the smartest thing you could do in order to get justice. While you might not think it matters much that you have an attorney, this couldn’t be further from the truth. Only an attorney with extensive experience in handling wrongful death lawsuit settlements will be able to get you just and equitable compensation for the death of your family member.

You need help to survive financially if your family member was your sole source of financial support. If you have children, you need to care for them, pay the bills and move forward as best you can. You can’t do this without wrongful death damages.

Don’t make the mistake of thinking that damages in a wrongful death case are just the same as the kind of damages you could get in a personal injury lawsuit. This is not true. When asking for wrongful death damages, the attorney includes funeral and burial costs, the expense of any medical treatments prior to death, the loss of care, guidance, comfort, advice, companionship, loss of consortium and the pain and suffering of the deceased prior to death. Your grief over the loss is also factored into the final calculations for wrongful death damages.

Try not to let grief over your family member’s death cloud the fact that you need help from an attorney to seek justice for the death. Don’t wait to file a lawsuit, as time is crucial in cases like this.

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Wrongful Death Lawsuits Filed in Civil Court

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While some people may consider a wrongful death to be a criminal act, or at the very least, the result of a criminal act, a wrongful death lawsuit is a civil case and is tried in civil court. When the death of someone is caused by the negligence of another, this is usually when the survivors choose to file a wrongful death lawsuit. In most instances, the person or persons filing the lawsuit are the parents, children or spouse of the deceased. The survivors may also be referred to as distributees, next of kin or heirs.

While wrongful death may come calling in many ways, it is usually as a result of an auto accident, motorcycle accident, truck crash, brain injury, medical malpractice or as the result of a defective/dangerous product.  These areas are often referred to as personal injury law because the victim suffered harm to their “person.”  This means that those who were negligent or blatantly reckless and caused harm, are the people named in the wrongful death lawsuit.

Depending on how the death happened, this may involve naming defendants that are employers, doctors, another driver or a manufacturer. The key here is that the person(s) named by the wrongful death attorney are considered to be the responsible party or parties that caused the death.

These kinds of cases are not something that people can handle on their own. You need a competent and highly skilled wrongful death attorney who has extensive experience in this area of the law. It is vitally important to be able to recover wrongful death damages for pain and suffering, funeral costs and the burial, medical expenses and other costs associated with the death. In some wrongful death lawsuit settlements, the heirs or distributees are able to claim for a loss of an expected inheritance.

In some instances, a surviving spouse and children may have been solely relying on the deceased’s wages in order to live. The sudden death of the sole breadwinner in the family has the potential to leave them without enough money to live on. This means the wrongful death attorney would also make a claim for lost income.

There is another option that a wrongful death attorney may utilize, and that would be a survival action. This means surviving family members ask for additional wrongful death damages for the pain and suffering of the person who died. This is one method of helping to provide healing to a family grieving over the death of their loved one. It helps them feel that justice was done on behalf of their lost family member.

While this is not a common action, it has been done in the past. You need to speak to your wrongful death attorney about the viability of using such an option in your case. Generally speaking, survivors must be in financial dire straits due to the death of their family member in order to get a wrongful death lawsuit settlement.

Earlier in this article, we mentioned that many people thought that a wrongful death action was a criminal case. It is true that in some instances the person responsible for a wrongful death may be prosecuted criminally. However, in a criminal case, the family is not entitled to compensation and this is why, in order to obtain wrongful death damages, they must file their action in civil court.

When a wrongful death attorney files a lawsuit, they generally begin by attempting to negotiate a settlement. If that doesn’t work, the case proceeds to trial. At trial, a judge or a judge and jury will have the final say about what kind of wrongful death damages the family will be awarded. How does the court decide that? Among other things, they determine how much the defendant is responsible for the death. While you might think this ought to be pretty clear, it often isn’t.

Some courts may feel a family is not entitled to a large wrongful death lawsuit settlement if the person at fault could not possibly have anticipated what happened to cause the death. In some cases, the deceased may have been negligent as well and contributed to the cause of the accident.

There are many other things that a court takes into consideration when trying to determine wrongful death damages, and this is something you really need to discuss with your attorney to understand what may happen in your case.

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