Imagine driving a car down the highway and it starts accelerating without the driver stepping on the gas. This is exactly what the Toyota Acceleration Class Action Lawsuit revolves around. Over 16 million Toyota, Lexus and Scion cars were sold by Toyota Motor Corp that experienced “sudden unexpected acceleration.” The lawsuit is entitled In Re: Toyota Motor Corp. Unintended Acceleration Marketing, Sales Practices and Products Liability Litigation and is in the jurisdiction of the United States District Court, Central District of California. Toyota has agreed to settlement fund of over $1 billion pending a fairness hearing. This is the largest settlement in relation to an automobile defect in the history of the United States. The settlement funds will also create a driver education programs and promote new research into advanced safety technologies to help prevent this from happening again in the future.
Not only was this unexpected acceleration a huge safety risk but it also killed the resale value of the automobiles. Class members in the Toyota EL Settlement are defined as anyone who own or owned, purchase(d), lease(d) and/or insure(d) the residual value as a Residual Value Insurer of a Subject Vehicle equipped or installed with an ETCS distributed for sale or lease prior to December 28, 2012. The deadline to submit a claim will be 150 Days From the Notice Date.
The settlement fairness hearing will be held before U.S. District Judge James Selna at the Ronald Reagan Federal Building and United States District Court. You do not have to attend this hearing to be par to be part of the settlement. The courthouse is located at 411 West Fourth Street, Santa Ana, CA 92701 in case you do attend.
The deadline to object or exclude yourself from the settlement has been set at May 13, 2013. If you exclude yourself from the settlement terms you will not be bound by any decisions made as a part of the class action settlement. If you decide to remain in the lawsuit you will be represented by the law firms of Steve W. Berman at Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP; Marc M. Seltzer at Susman Godfrey LLP; and Frank M. Pitre at Cotchett, Pitre & McCarthy. These law firms are known as the Class Counsel and you will not be charged for these lawyers if you remain in the settlement. The class administrators web portal contains a copy of the following court documents: Settlement Agreement (With Exhibits)
- Long Form Notice
- Safety Research and Education Plan
- List of Subject Vehicles
- Plan of Allocation
