Sometimes the Opinion Page of the Wall Street Journal is so fun to read. Yes it normally makes me mad, except for the weekly "Tilting Yard" by Thomas Frank, but then there are the admissions that the corporate apologists selected by Rupert Murdoch-Paul Gigot and the rest of the WSJ actually make that they don't even realize they are making. They make it worth reading if you can stand it.
We have all seen the news accounts of the statements by the US management of Toyota and its CEO Akio Toyoda have made so I will not do the links.
What I want to call attention to, below the jump, is from the WSJ February 24, 2010 and the 1980's history of Audi's sudden acceleration issue.
In Thursday's WSJ on page A 15, its additional Opinion page, there is this editorial by WSJ staffer, Holman Jenkins, Jr., called "My Sudden Acceleration Nightmare". In it he pretends to be the dreaming Toyota CEO Akio Toyoda and relates that dream sequence as including the following:
CEO Toyoda dreams: "I should have listened to the Germans. They racked up billions of miles on their vehicle electronics before bringing them to lawyer-happy America. They installed a brake-override so a foot on the brake would always shut the throttle."
The dream sequence continues with CEO Toyoda dreaming as follows: "To think, if we had adopted the same kludge, our runaway-vehicle complaints would probably be in line with those of our competitors".
What this references is the problem that Audi had in the 1980's with the 1978-83 models of Audi that shifted out of park and could not be stopped by its brakes. See The Center for Auto Safety for details and links to the National Highway Safety Administration data. www.autosafety.org/audi-sudden acceleration
Please note that the basic theory behind all products liability litigation like that involving the Corvair, Pinto, Explorer, Firestone tires, etc., is the awareness by safety engineers of the problem and the ability of industry to address and fix it for a reasonable cost.
This statement by Mr. Jenkins, inadvertent or not, in the Wall Street Journal, about the similar defect and its correction by WV in Audi in the 1980’s, showed there was a well recognized problem, correction was feasible and the cost of the repairs and correction was financially acceptable, as away to avoid the safety defect now acknowledged in the Toyota vehicles. It will be very useful in products liability cases to be able to reference Mr. Jenkins, not as an expert, but just for fun, in the settlement proposals and settlement conferences with Toyota and its insurance defense teams.
As a trial lawyer, it is fun to see the leading conservative corporate newspaper in the US, which always bashes us, providing such as statement that will frequently be shown to Toyota, its insurance adjusters and defense lawyers and maybe to juries and judges in litigation by families seeking reasonable damages for suffering caused as a result of Toyota not following the industry safety standard available for over 20 years.