New Mexico Personal Injury Lawyer Blog

Allstate insurance, Fireman’s Fund, and six other automobile insurance companies have filed lawsuits against Toyota. The insurance companies are asking to be reimbursed for losses paid because of crashes caused by “runaway” Toyotas.

The insurers claim that there is a “product defect” in Toyota vehicles that causes sudden, unintended acceleration. When unintended acceleration occurs, the driver looses control. The brakes are unable to override the acceleration.

The lack of brake-override system in older model Toyotas is another product defect. Over 80% of its new vehicles now on sale are equipped with the “brake-override” control feature. Toyota intends to be the first carmaker to offer the safety technology in all of its models. The safety software is intended to ensure that, when the car experiences unintended acceleration, pressure on the break will cause the engine to reduce thrust and return to “idle” mode.

The victims of “runaway” Toyotas have filed numerous lawsuits for personal injuries and wrongful deaths. It is estimated that Toyota may be liable for more than $10 billion.

Reports of “runaway” Toyotas began in 2000. Toyota has always maintained that the unintended acceleration was due to driver error, improper floor mats, or sticky accelerator peddles. Toyota has always denied that there is an electronic flaw in its vehicles. Government studies have found no evidence of a glitch in Toyotas electronics.

In wrongful death and personal injury litigation, Toyota may well prevail on its claim that there is no glitch in its electronics. Toyota’s liability might rest on the absence of a fail-safe override system. A fail-safe override system was not introduced until 2010.

New Mexico personal injury lawyers can sue Toyota for damages cause by Toyota’s defective vehicles. Toyota’s liability for wrongful death and bodily injury damages will not make the plaintiffs “whole.” It will, however, lessen the burden of losses caused by a decade of “runaway” Toyotas.

On August 20, 2009, a runaway Lexus crashed and burned. The four occupants of the vehicle were killed. Before the crash, a passenger made a frantic 911 call from the vehicle. The passenger told the 911 operator that the driver could not control the vehicle, the accelerator was stuck, and that the breaks were not working.

A wrongful death lawsuit was filed against Toyota, the manufacturer of the Lexus, and against the Lexus dealership, which installed an over-sized floor mat in the vehicle.

In September 2010, Toyota paid 10 million dollars to settle the wrongful death claims against it. The action for damages against the dealership continues.

The runaway Lexus was “loaner” from the local Lexus dealer. The dealer had installed a floor mat designed for a larger vehicle. Sheriff’s investigators concluded that the gas petal became stuck under the over-sized floor mat.

Another customer drove the “loaner” Lexus a few day earlier. He reported that the Lexus raced out of control and the gas pedal became stuck on the floor mat. He was able to regain control after he put the gear shift into neutral. He said he reported the problem to the Lexus dealer.

The attorney for the plaintiffs in the wrongful death lawsuit says that the plaintiffs regard the dealer as the party responsible for the deadly crash. The attorney said the plaintiffs will ask that the wrongful death damages assessed against the Lexus dealer be in an amount in excess of the 10 million dollars paid by Toyota.

New Mexico’s wrongful death law is similar to California's. If the deadly crash had happened in New Mexico and the wrongful death claims were filed in a New Mexico court, the outcome would be the same as in the California case. After the jury determines the total amount of the wrongful death damages, the jury would be asked to asses the percentage of the total damage that was due to the negligence of the Lexus dealer. The dealer would be liable for the share of the damages caused by it’s negligence.

Airbags are now common place throughout the nation. We rely on airbags to protect us when the unthinkable happens. However, defective airbags can be just as harmful, if not more dangerous than no airbag at all.

Defective airbag lawsuits generally involve a limited series of claims. The airbag deployed with too much force, too little force, or it failed to deploy under the appropriate force. An experienced airbag attorney (not meant as a slur) is aware that such cases are often very technical and usually require an expert to study the vehicle as soon as possible to provide an opinion regarding what caused the airbag to deploy defectively, or fail to deploy all together.

Given the high costs that an attorney must front in defective airbag cases, the severity of injury is a major factor for product liability attorneys selecting which cases to pursue. However, if you or a loved one has been injured due to a defective airbag, it is wise to contact an attorney experienced in defective airbag litigation before allowing the vehicle to be moved, inspected, or repaired by an insurance company.

Defective cribs, and other children’s products are some of the most scary recalls. Sadly, the users of these products lack the level of caution and reason we expect from adults or even older children. One new recall of dangerous and defective cribs highlights the dangers of what can occur when these products are not designed or built well.

The consumer product safety commission recently announced that 40,000 cribs are being recalled do to sides that can drop causing serious injury and even death. Since 2000, dropped sides in cribs have caused 32 deaths and are suspected in even more. Although this is a small number considering the millions of cribs sold during this same period, anyone will agree that a single death caused by a defective crib is too many.

The recall affects Ethan Allen, Angel Line, and Victory Land brand cribs. Hopefully the use of these dangerous crib are coming to an end as the CPSC passed a measure to ban drop-side cribs this past July.

Attorneys on both sides of new Toyota litigation arising from the injuries and deaths allegedly caused by defects in the design of the Toyota Prius have petitioned a single California district court to assume jurisdiction over hundreds of lawsuits pending across the nation. The system under which this consolidation would occur for cases such as Toyota Prius Litigation, called "Multidistrict Litigation" or MDL, helps conserve the resources of the judiciary and the parties involved in the lawsuit, by unifying the process by which all sides conduct trial preparation. After this trial preparation, or discovery, is completed, the case returns to the original jurisdiction for trial, if necessary. Thus, a person who was injured in a Prius in New Mexico would file his or her case in the District of New Mexico; it would then be transferred to whatever federal district was assigned the MDL and returned to New Mexico for trial. Because of the large number of plaintiffs who are affected, MDL most often occurs in product liability cases and environmental and toxic torts.

Parents in Otero and Lea Counties are at a high level of alert after reports that two infants contracted e. Sakazakii, a bacteria believed to be connected to the preparation of baby formula. One infant passed away as a result of the illness, while another was hospitalized. Given the recent baby formula deaths in China, it is hard to rule out the two incidents as coincidence. However, hopefully tha tis exactly what it is and not the first signs of a possible New Mexico product liability action.

While the matter is investigated further, doctors are recommending that parents and caregivers ensure that everything is clean during the preparation of formula. This would apply to both the bottles being used as well as the hands of whoever is mixing formula.

Hopefully this issue is resolved immediately without additional victims.