Judge Puts Calif. Toyota Claims on a Single Track

Lawsuits filed in California's state courts against Toyota Motor Corp. over sudden unintended acceleration will be coordinated in a single proceeding, a Los Angeles judge ruled tentatively on Tuesday.

The proceeding was the first to address at least 21 lawsuits filed in California's state courts over a myriad of claims that include economic losses on behalf of consumers, lemon law violations and damages for those who have been injured or died in a Toyota.

"The common thread is unintended acceleration that binds these cases together," Los Angeles County, Calif., Superior Court Judge Carl West told a group of 30 lawyers in a downtown Los Angeles courtroom.

The state court actions are separate from nearly 300 lawsuits pending in multidistrict litigation in federal court in Santa Ana, Calif.

Lawyers on both sides of the state court cases have attempted to coordinate them into a single proceeding to expedite and streamline the discovery process, particularly as it relates to depositions. Leading that effort has been Mark Robinson, senior partner at Newport Beach, Calif.-based Robinson, Calcagnie & Robinson, who was named co-liaison counsel of the personal injury and wrongful death plaintiffs' steering committee in the federal MDL.

Five plaintiffs lawyers with eight personal injury or wrongful death lawsuits argued against coordinating the cases.

"We'll be slowed down considerably," said Garo Mardirossian, managing partner of Maridrossian & Associates in Los Angeles, who represents the husband of a woman who died on Aug. 28 after her Toyota accelerated to 100 miles per hour, crashing into a median.

Also opposing coordination was John Gomez, of The Gomez Law Firm in San Diego, who represents the relatives of California Highway Patrol Officer Mark Saylor. Saylor was killed, along with his wife, his daughter and his brother-in-law, when his Lexus crashed after suddenly accelerating to 120 miles per hour on a San Diego highway.

The Aug. 28 crash prompted Toyota's first wave of recalls, which now number more than 8 million vehicles worldwide.

Gomez told the judge that in the state court claims against Bridgestone Corp.'s Firestone Tire Co. years ago, not all the individual personal injury cases were coordinated even though there were far more of them than in the Toyota litigation.

The judge did not seem persuaded. "We have five to eight here to begin with. How many more are there?" he said.

Toyota's lawyer, Lisa Gilford, a partner in the Los Angeles office of Alston & Bird, said she preferred to have all the cases in a single proceeding. But she recognized the individual facts inherent in the personal injury and wrongful death cases, which could number as many as 15 in California's state courts.

"We are acknowledging certain types of cases will likely move along different tracks," she said.

In the end, West issued a tentative order coordinating the cases under a state procedure called Judicial Council Coordinated Proceedings, or JCCP.

"I'm sympathetic to the concern you have but also think that there are significant issues to be addressed" in all the cases, West told the lawyers opposing the move. Among those issues are the defects and claims regarding failure to warn and negligence. He offered two options for combining the actions, however. One option would create a second coordinated proceeding before the same judge to address specific issues unique to the personal injury and wrongful death cases. Another option, he said, would allow the cases to move forward in the same proceeding but on a separate track that would be "reflective of their different characteristics."

The judge refused to rule on where the coordinated proceeding should take place. He left that decision to California's chief justice, Ronald George.

Most of the plaintiffs' lawyers argued that the cases should be coordinated in Los Angeles, while Gilford requested Orange County, where the federal MDL is taking place. Orange County District Attorney Tony Rackauckas said the Orange County, Calif., Superior Court is "not terribly congested."

"We are certainly able to come to L.A. if that's what is determined, but we think Orange County makes sense," he said.


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