Southern California prosecutors filed the first U.S. consumer protection lawsuit against Toyota Motor Corp on Friday, claiming it had engaged in "fraud" by hiding evidence of dangerous vehicle defects.
Orange County District Attorney Tony Rackauckas said his office along with private attorneys sued the U.S. sales arm of Toyota, charging that the world's top-selling automaker has endangered the public with defective vehicles, and engaged in deceptive business practices.
"Against this backdrop of fraud and concealment, Toyota has for decades touted its reputation for safety and reliability and knew that people bought its vehicles because of that reputation and yet purposefully chose to conceal and suppress the existence and nature of defects," said the 18-page lawsuit filed on Friday morning.
The suit seeks to keep Toyota "from continuing to endanger the public through the sale of defective vehicles and deceptive business practices."
A Toyota spokesman said the company had no immediate comment.
Toyota has recalled more than 8 million vehicles globally to address the risk that accelerator pedals on a range of its vehicles could become stuck because of a loose floor mat or a glitch in the pedal assembly.
Unintended acceleration in the company's Toyota and Lexus vehicles has been linked to at least five U.S. crash deaths since 2007. Authorities are investigating reports alleging 47 other fatalities over the past decade.
The suit charges that Toyota knew about the defects in "selling and leasing hundreds of thousands of cars and trucks with defects that caused sudden unexpected and uncontrollable acceleration."
Rackauckas told a news conference that his office will work with private attorneys from Robinson, Calcagnie and Robinson of Newport Beach in Orange County.
Rackauckas, a Republican who is up for re-election this year, defended his office's filing of the suit and the hiring of the private attorneys.
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