In the wake of the Toyota recalls over the past year, a number of different types of lawsuits have been filed across the country and around the world. The lawsuits stem from recalls covering over 8 million Toyota manufactured vehicles. The first recall came last year after numerous complaints about unintended acceleration in Toyota manufactured vehicles ultimately ended in the death of a family of four that were driving a Lexus SUV in San Diego. The vehicle began to accelerate and the driver was unable to stop it ending with the vehicle plummeting into a canyon and killing all four occupants. Sadly, that was just the start of a number of stories of deaths and injuries allegedly caused by defects in Toyota manufactured vehicles. As a result of the numerous defects that have now become the subject of a series of recalls, people across the country have begun to file lawsuits against the automaker giant.
The lawsuits that have been filed fall into two main categories: personal injury and economic loss. The personal injury lawsuits are generally individual lawsuits that claim a Toyota manufactured vehicle was responsible for injuries or death to the Plaintiff or a member of the Plaintiff’s family. The other type of lawsuit is for economic losses. The economic loss lawsuits have generally been filed as class action lawsuits. A class action lawsuit is when a group of injured (physically or financially) Plaintiff’s file a lawsuit as a group. This can be done when the facts of each individual person’s case are similar and the evidence needed to prove the cases are largely the same.
The Toyota economic loss lawsuits are based on the idea that consumers that purchased a Toyota manufactured vehicle have now suffered an economic loss as a result of the recalls over the past year, according to California Toyota recall attorney Emery Ledger of Ledger & Associates. Unlike a personal injury lawsuit, a Plaintiff in an economic loss lawsuit does not have to have been involved in an actual accident to recover compensation. The argument in an economic loss claim is that the Plaintiff purchased the vehicle expecting that it would retain a certain amount of its value. In the case of Toyota, most people know that Toyota’s historically retained a larger portion of their value than other vehicles throughout the years. Therefore, if you purchased a Toyota vehicle last year, you had a reasonable expectation that it would still be worth a large percentage of its original value this year. However, because of the recalls over the last year and the loss of consumer confidence in the once giant automaker, Toyota manufactured vehicles have lost value in the marketplace. If you are the owner of a Toyota manufactured vehicle, that means that the asset that you reasonably believed to have a certain worth is now worth less. To put it in simple terms, let’s say that you purchased a Toyota manufactured vehicle last year for $30,000. If that vehicle has historically retained 90% of its value after the first year than it should be worth $27,000 today. If the fair market value of the vehicle has dropped to $20,000 because of the recalls and the drop in consumer confidence in Toyota manufactured vehicles, then you have a $7,000 economic loss caused by Toyota. That is the argument for an economic loss lawsuit.
If you feel that you have suffered an economic loss or a personal injury as a result of a Toyota manufactured vehicle, please feel free to contact California Toyota recall attorney Emery Ledger of Ledger & Associates at 1-800-300-0001 or online at www.ledgerlaw.com.
