Personal Injury Law: US Gov’t to Slap Toyota with $16M fine for Defective Gas Pedals

April 5, 2010

Washington – The US government plans to penalize Toyota with the maximum penalty of $16.4 million in fines for failure to alert regulators regarding safety problems in its gas pedals and for allegedly “hiding a dangerous defect” in its Camry and Corolla models, Transportation secretary Ray LaHood has announced.

The gas defects had led the giant automaker to recall more than 6 million vehicles in the US and more than 8 million worldwide.

LaHood said there could be further penalties as federal investigations continue.

The secretary said that documents show that Toyota knew the acceleration problem as early as September but did not issue the recall until late January and quite a number of people have already been injured in various accidents around the country.

Under federal law, automakers must “notify NHTSA within five days of determining that a safety defect exists and promptly conduct a recall”.

The sticking gas pedals has affected more than 2.3 million vehicles and the government has linked 52 deaths to the problem.

As a result, the giant automaker now faces 138 potential class-action suits (falling vehicle values) and more than 100 personal injury and wrongful death cases in federal courts nationwide.

If Toyota decides to pay the fines, it would be tantamount to admission which could affect the outcome of the various lawsuits. The company, however, has two weeks to either accept or contest the penalty.

Toyota has not issued a comment on the proposed penalty.