Lawsuit alleges Toyota has history of hiding safety concerns

LOS ANGELES — As Toyota Motor Corp.
scrambles to contain its sudden acceleration crisis, another potential
blow to the automaker’s credibility is lurking in the form of a former
staff attorney who is accusing the Japanese automaker of concealing
safety issues from the public.

Dimitrios Biller of Pacific Palisades, Calif., who defended Toyota
in product liability cases until 2008, alleges in a federal lawsuit
that the automaker has a long history of hiding and destroying evidence
as part of a strategy orchestrated from company headquarters in Toyota
City, Japan.

Toyota and its
ex-employee have been involved in a tangle of litigation in state and
federal courts for months, centered on 6,000 internal documents
obtained by Biller. He says the documents show a pattern of illegal
behavior in which Toyota fraudulently withheld evidence in product liability claims.

At Toyota’s urging, the documents have been kept confidential by court order since last summer. But now a California arbitrator is considering whether they can be made public. Attorneys for Toyota and Biller made their final filings in the matter last week, and a decision is expected soon.

If the arbitrator rules in Biller’s favor, a legion of plaintiff’s attorneys are waiting to reopen long-closed cases against Toyota.

Although the allegations don’t directly concern Toyota’s
growing sudden acceleration headache, the Biller case is another
assault on the automaker’s credibility, which has taken a hit in the
current crisis.

“Toyota
is a very secretive corporation,” Biller, 47, said in an interview. “It
doesn’t believe anybody outside the corporation deserves to know what
is going on inside, even if it kills somebody.”

Toyota denies Biller’s allegations and contends that any attempts on his part to reveal documents would be a violation of a $3.9 million severance agreement he signed with the company.

“Mr. Biller is legally bound not to reveal documentation he acquired when he was in our employ,” said Celeste Migliore, a Toyota spokeswoman.

But attorneys who have been involved in litigation with Toyota are watching every move.

“If this is as widespread as suggested (by Biller),
then you’re going to have lawyers all over the country wondering what
was hidden from them in their cases and deciding what that means for
their clients,” said Jeff Embry, a Tyler, Texas, attorney working on a Toyota rollover case.

Biller first came to Toyota in 2003 after years working at Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw & Pittman handling product liability cases for Ford Motor Co.,
maritime law and class-action suits. Brought on to manage the company’s
defense of rollover and crushed-roof lawsuits, he took multiple cases
to trial, reversing a corporate strategy to settle such cases.

According to Biller, he began noticing problems
after two years with the automaker. When preparing to litigate a
rollover case, he said he visited various Toyota offices and discovered troves of documents that hadn’t been provided to him.

“I was distraught because I knew there probably was stuff in there that the company did not produce,” said Biller.

Normally companies gather all relevant
documentation, including e-mails, engineering documents, memos and
regulatory filings, in anticipation that plaintiff’s attorneys may
request them as part of the legal discovery process.

“Lawyers have obligations to their clients and to the court,” said Carl Tobias, a University of Richmond
law professor who specializes in product liability issues. “Right now,
people are wondering what the company knew and when they knew it.”

According to Biller, he uncovered a “conspiracy” to
keep potentially damaging internal information such as vehicle test
reports away from outside attorneys in as many as 300 cases.

“Toyota does not believe it has to follow orders or turn over documents,” Biller said. “They just don’t think the rules apply to them.”

Frustrated by what he described as resistance from his supervisors to resolve the matter, Biller left the automaker in June 2007 and signed a severance agreement in August of that year.

He acknowledges that he has been in treatment for
mental health issues since late 2005, which he attributes to the stress
he was placed under by Toyota. “I never saw a shrink in my life before working for Toyota,” he said.

In a statement last fall, Toyota said that Biller’s “allegations are both misleading and inaccurate.” The automaker sued Biller in California, claiming he had violated his severance agreement, in late 2008. That case is still pending.

Biller has also sued the Los Angeles County district attorney in federal court after a three-month stint working there after he left Toyota
ended in his termination. In state court, he has sued the attorney that
represented him in negotiating the severance agreement. Both cases are
pending.

“Mr. Biller appears to be very litigious,” said James Gilbert, an Arveda, Colo., attorney who said he has handled dozens of rollover cases against Toyota, including ones managed by Biller, and has been in close contact with Toyota on the Biller situation in recent months.

Still, Gilbert said, “Biller was on the inside, so who knows what he knows.”

Biller’s argument took a blow in late December, when a Texas attorney who had moved to reopen a rollover case against Toyota based on the allegations suddenly moved to dismiss. The attorney, E. Todd Tracy, said that Toyota
had shown him a “mirror” copy of the documents Biller possessed and
that they did not convince him he had a strong enough case to move
forward.

Toyota subsequently said it had shown Tracy only “nonprivileged” documents.

In late December, Biller notified Toyota that he intended to provide a complete copy of the documents to the Los Angeles Times, prompting the automaker to ask a California arbitrator to grant a temporary injunction barring him from showing them to anyone.

While that case is pending, a federal judge in Texas may also have a hand in the Biller matter.

Part of Biller’s complaint against Toyota
alleged that it had hidden evidence in a rollover case that left a
young woman paralyzed. That case was settled in spring 2007, but based
on Biller’s allegations Embry in September asked a federal judge to
sanction the automaker for contempt of court.

Embry has called Biller as a witness in the case.

“We went to get him under oath and ask him if he was asked to conceal evidence,” Embry said. “We want to see justice done.”

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