Is Toyota Putting A Zip On It?

There have been a very high number of injury cases and rollover deaths that have occurred in Toyota vehicles and this popular motor company has been accused by one of their former attorneys, of deliberately keeping quiet about evidence as a “ruthless conspiracy” to hide structural problems that could tarnish this well-known automobile manufacturer.

Dimitrios P. Biller filed a major federal racketeering lawsuit in Los Angeles, claiming that he lost his job due to complaints he made against Toyota Motor Sales concerning a situation of legal misconduct.

A statement was televised Friday on CBS News where Toyota claimed the charges that Biller filed to be “inaccurate and misleading.” The motor company further added, "Toyota takes its legal obligations seriously and works to uphold the highest professional and ethical standards."

Although the suit that names various lawyers and senior executives was filed in Los Angeles U.S. District Court on the 24th of July, the hearing date of Sept. 14 has just now been publicized.

Biller was employed by Toyota from 2003 until 2007, as a defending attorney for lawsuits filed that claimed rollover accidents were the blame of many deaths and injuries that occurred because of the unstable roof support of various Toyota pickups and SUV’s.

The complaint Biller filed says he was “surprised and alarmed” during his time spent with Toyota when he first realized they were withholding required evidence such as emails and other stored information from plaintiffs illegally.

The complaint also alleges that in lawsuits held in both Texas and Colorado, that Toyota defied court orders by not supplying important emails. After learning this, Biller attempted to obtain this information so it could be preserved. These efforts failed as the engineering department "was allowed to destroy relevant information and documents that should have been produced in, approximately, over 300 rollover accidents involving roof crush issues," claimed in the suit. The lawsuit further alleges that the motor company improperly and continuously withheld documents holding information on the designing and testing of the roofs of vehicles.

These claims have “blown away” Stuart Ollanik, an attorney of Denver’s Ollanik and Komyatte, who has settled and been involved with numerous rollover cases against the Toyota Company. They have him wondering out loud if the cases he was involved with "were resolved based on honest information or not."

In Friday’s statement, Toyota says they are "disappointed" that Biller has attempted "to avoid what we believe are his obligations as an attorney formerly employed by Toyota. In our view, Mr. Biller has repeatedly breached his ethical and professional obligations, both as an attorney and in his commitments to us, by violating attorney-client privilege."