Here is the official story on the matter:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/08/29/cbsnews_investigates/main5273636.shtml
You guys can come to your conclusion, but here are a few interesting tidbits if you're too tired to read the whole thing:
A former attorney for Toyota has accused the automaker of illegally withholding evidence in hundreds of rollover death and injury cases, in a "ruthless conspiracy" to keep evidence "of its vehicles' structural shortcomings from becoming known."
The explosive allegations are contained in a federal racketeering suit filed in Los Angeles by Dimitrios P. Biller, former managing counsel for Toyota Motor Sales, USA, Inc., who claims his complaints about the company's legal misconduct cost him his job.
A hearing on the motion has been set for September 14.
Biller, who did not return phone calls, worked for Toyota Motor Sales, based in Torrance, Calif., from 2003 to 2007.
He was involved in defending rollover lawsuits that blamed injuries and deaths on instability and weak roofs of the company's SUVs and pickups. Along with Toyota Motor Sales and Japanese parent Toyota Motor Corp., his suit names five senior executives and lawyers of Motor Sales. The case was filed July 24 in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, but has not been publicized until now.
Biller's 75-page complaint says that when he came to Toyota after nearly 15 years in private practice, he was "surprised and alarmed" to discover that the company was not producing e-mails and other electronically stored information to plaintiffs as he said was required. According to the lawsuit, Biller repeatedly complained to supervisors that the company was illegally withholding evidence.
The lawsuit further states that the resulting conflicts ultimately caused Biller to suffer a mental breakdown and led to his forced resignation in September 2007.
He left with a $3.7 million severance agreement, court records show.
Despite these efforts, the engineering unit "was allowed to destroy relevant information and documents that should have been produced in, approximately, over 300 rollover accidents involving roof crush issues," the lawsuit claims.
It further charges that
Toyota regularly, and improperly, withheld records on design and testing of vehicle roofs. For example, it says that Toyota never produced a document showing that the company's internal standard for roof strength was tougher than the federal requirement.
Toyota engineers and witnesses repeatedly testified that the internal standard did not exist, the lawsuit says, adding that there are vehicles on the road today that do not meet the standard.
Word of the case has electrified the plaintiffs' bar, where some lawyers involved in vehicle cases have long voiced suspicions about foreign automakers withholding evidence.
With grim memories of Toyota's May 2004 courtroom victory over his quadriplegic client in a Toyota
4Runner rollover case, San Jose lawyer James McManis said he, too, was riveted by the charges. In the 4Runner case, everything with Toyota "was a big fight - and I mean everything - but I never suspected they were behaving dishonestly or concealing or withholding evidence," McManis said. "So I'm very interested in knowing whether we got all the discovery we should have got."
In its statement Friday, Toyota said it was "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."
