Lawmaker: Toyota withheld evidence in suits

February 27, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

WASHINGTON (AP) — A House lawmaker said Friday that internal Toyota documents show the automaker deliberately withheld key vehicle design and testing evidence in lawsuits filed by Toyota drivers injured in crashes.

In a letter to Toyota’s top North American executive, House oversight committee chairman Edolphus Towns accused Toyota of shielding its testing data on potential problems with Toyota vehicles. Towns wrote that Toyota chose to enter hefty settlements with plaintiffs to avoid disclosing the database, which he said was referred to as the “Books of Knowledge.”

The Toyota documents “show a systematic disregard for the law and routine violation of court discovery orders in litigation,” Towns wrote in the letter to Yoshimi Inaba.

Toyota said in a statement that it is confident it acted appropriately in product liability lawsuits and it looks forward to addressing Towns’ concerns. The automaker said it is not uncommon for companies to object to demands for documents made in lawsuits.

Inaba and Toyota president Akio Toyoda appeared before the committee Wednesday, the second of two House hearings this week on Toyota’s recall of 8.5 million vehicles over safety concerns. Toyota turned over thousands of internal documents before the hearings. A third hearing is scheduled for next week in the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation.

Also Friday, Toyota officially said it will extend nationwide some recall-related services that it was offering to customers only in New York, including quick scheduling of repairs, driving a customer to work, and providing alternate transportation (loaner or rental car).

The services will be offered to all Toyota and Lexus owners in the U.S. whose vehicles are covered by sticky pedal, floor mat, antilock brake or drive shaft-related recalls.