MAY 27, 2010 | LITIGATION
By Gabe Friedman
Daily Journal Staff Writer
LOS ANGELES - A hearing to consolidate lawsuits filed in state court against Toyota Motor Corp. over sudden unintended acceleration lead to accusations of forum-shopping Tuesday, as plaintiff lawyers pushed back against the automaker's request to transfer the cases to Orange County.
The accusations took shape after a hearing at which Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Carl West tentatively consolidated about 30 state lawsuits into a single case, combining a small number of personal injury cases with a larger group of plaintiffs seeking recovery for economic damages. But West left open whether the cases should stay in his courthouse or move to Orange County.
The state court suits are separate from about 300 suits filed in federal court that a multi-district litigation panel consolidated in Santa Ana in April. The state court cases revolve around plaintiffs and incidents that took place exclusively in California.
Both the federal and state cases contain similar types of claims such as economic losses for people saw the re-sale value of their Toyotas decline after publicity about unintended acceleration crashes. However, the state cases also include claims under California's lemon law statute and feature the two most prominent personal injury cases, filed by families of a deceased California Highway Patrol officer in San Diego and a deceased sushi restaurant proprietor in Upland.
A Toyota lawyer asked West to move the state cases to Orange County Superior Court, noting the federal cases are in Santa Ana. But that set off a round of protests from plaintiff lawyers at the hearing, some of whom said it was merely a strategy to move the cases to an area with a more conservative jury pool.
"There's no relevance that the [federal litigation] is already in Santa Ana," said Garo Mardirossian, of Mardirossian & Associates in Los Angeles, who represents the deceased sushi proprietor's family. "They really are not connected at all Orange County has a more conservative jury pool than L.A., and [Toyota] is trying to do a bit of forum shopping."
Toyota's lawyer, Lisa Gilford, of Alston + Bird in Los Angeles, did not return calls seeking comment. A spokeswoman for Toyota was not available for comment Tuesday.
Among the plaintiffs at the hearing, there appeared to be a consensus against Orange County. But Orange County District Attorney Tony Rackauckus, whose office has filed a civil suit accusing Toyota of deceptive business practices for selling faulty cars, rose in agreement with Toyota.
"I think Orange County makes sense geographically, being about halfway to San Diego," Rackauckus said.
That made John Gomez, of the Gomez Law Firm in San Diego, who represents the deceased CHP Officer, blanch.
"We're from San Diego," Gomez told the judge, "and we're happy to drive straight through" Orange County to Los Angeles.
John P. Kristensen, of O'Reilly Collins in San Francisco who represents a client with wrongful death claims, said that most of the cases were filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court compared to only a couple of cases in Orange County.
Toyota's U.S. sales headquarters are in Los Angeles, several plaintiff lawyers pointed out. But it also has offices in Irvine.
In the end, Judge West said he would coordinate all the cases, but defer to Chief Justice Ron George in Sacramento to decide where the cases should be litigated. He also said whichever judge is ultimately assigned the case can decide whether to separate out the estimated five to eight personal injury cases among the 30 state court cases.
