Judge reaffirms order for Toyota dealers to turn over documents

"One of the nation's premier plaintiffs' firms."

American Lawyer
"Representing the best qualities of the plaintiffs' bar."

The National Law Journal
"Their effective and caring advocacy for clients has earned Lieff Cabraser its first-class reputation."

The Daily Journal

Media Center

Judge Reaffirms Order for Toyota Dealers to Turn Over Documents

National Law Journal

July 25, 2011

A judge in Los Angeles ordered dealerships to manually turn over repair records to plaintiffs' attorneys in the sudden acceleration litigation against Toyota Motor Corp. after an attempt by plaintiffs' lawyers to view such documents during a visit to a Los Angeles dealership collapsed in confusion.

"When my colleagues got there, they realized it was completely unworkable," said Todd Walburg, a partner at San Francisco's Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein, during a heated exchange in a packed courtroom on July 22. "There are more documents than we can ever imagine."

Judge Mohr appeared frustrated by Toyota's reluctance to turn over all the repair records outright. "I'm really at the end of it," he said in court. "I'm beginning to think there's an ulterior motive."

In the end, Mohr ordered that all repair records, including those on paper and scanned into computers, be turned over to plaintiffs' lawyers. He also allowed plaintiffs' lawyers to make copies of those records at a site away from the dealerships.

Read the full article or learn more about our Toyota Unindented Sudden Acceleration litigation.