Toyota settles $40 mln US lawsuit

LOS ANGELES, Oct 28, 2002; Steve Gorman writing for Reuters reported that Toyota Motor Corp. has reached an out-of-court settlement to a $40 million lawsuit brought against the Japan-based automaker by a quadriplegic over an allegedly flawed seat belt system, the plaintiff's lawyer said on Monday.

The two sides agreed not to disclose the terms of the settlement, which was reached last Friday with the help of mediation from a judge four days after the case went to trial, said the attorney, Garo Mardirossian.

The plaintiff, Jian Zhong Yang, 36, a former marathon runner and chef, suffered a severed spinal cord in a June 2000 car crash in California and sued Toyota last year claiming his injury resulted from the faulty placement of the shoulder harness and lap belt in his 1992 model Paseo.

The harness caught the slight-of-build Yang around the neck on impact as the lap belt failed to prevent him from sliding lower in his seat, Mardirossian said.

Toyota has rejected claims that its seat belt system was defective or that the placement of the shoulder harness and lap belt in Yang's car caused his spinal injury.

The Los Angeles Superior Court judge presiding over the suit ordered the two sides into settlement talks last week.

"Mr. Yang and his family decided it would be best not to subject him to the stresses of a trial and the delays that would of course follow, and agreed to resolve the matter amicably with Toyota," Mardirossian told Reuters. No fault was admitted on the part of the automaker, he said.

There was no immediate comment on the settlement from Toyota or its lawyers.

A "SUFFICIENT" SETTLEMENT

Although Mardirossian said a confidentiality agreement barred him from detailing the pact, he said the size of the cash settlement is "sufficient to take care of Mr. Yang for the rest of his life."

Yang's medical bills after two years in hospitals and nursing facilities have run $2 million and his future medical expenses and day-to-day care are expected to reach more than $15 million in today's dollars, his attorneys have said.

Yang, who had immigrated to the United States from China in recent years, is able to speak and move his head from side to side but was left paralyzed from the neck down, with only partial mobility in his shoulders.

Mardirossian said Yang is for all intents and purposes a quadriplegic dependent on others for his care. He has never been able to hold his 2-year-old daughter, who was born one month after the accident, the lawyer said.

In opening arguments at the trial last Wednesday, Mardirossian said Yang would have been better off with no seat belt than with the restraint system Toyota had installed in his car. He said a crash reenactment showed that the shoulder harness should have been placed lower and the lap belt fixed closer toward the back of the seat than it was.

Mardirossian contended in opening arguments last week that 1992 was the only year Toyota used that restraint system for its seat belt system in the United States, indicating the automaker knew it was defective.

Toyota's attorney, David Graves, said the system Toyota used in 1992 is the same one many carmakers use today, and the lack of recalls of the '92 Paseo proves the seat belts were safe. Graves also rejected the claim that the shoulder harness was responsible for severing Yang's spinal cord, and he said emergency medical personnel did not report seeing any bruises on the victim's neck the night of the crash.