Toyota Hit with Class Action Lawsuit Over Prius Safety System

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A class action lawsuit accusing Toyota Motor Corp. of misleading buyers about its pre-collision safety system, available in its high-end Prius V vehicles, was filed in California federal court on October 8.

Plaintiffs Tae Hee Lee and Alan Quan filed the Prius safety class action lawsuit, in which they claim that Toyota’s collision-avoidance system does not decelerate the vehicle quickly enough to prevent crashes. Further, they allege that the system provides no real safety benefit. They bring charges against Toyota for violating consumer laws.

According to the class action lawsuit, the pre-collision  safety system was advertised as using on-car radar to detect an imminent frontal collision and automatically applying the brakes to slow the car before impact. The plaintiffs say that it costs $5,000 to install a technology package that includes this pre-collision system in the Toyota Prius V and other Toyota models. Reportedly, the collision-avoidance system makes up about $1,000 of that amount.

In their class action lawsuit, Lee and Quan claim that the Insurance Institute of Highway Safety (IIHS) tested 47 vehicle models, including the Prius V, “in frontal crash scenarios set up at 12 and 25 miles per hour.” This organization found that Toyota’s pre-collision system (PCS) provided only a “negligible reduction in speed” and is not an adequate forward-collision warning system.

“Of those 47 models, only the Toyota Prius V and one Infinity model failed to qualify as a crash prevention system,” the class action lawsuit says. “Despite the PCS being marketed and sold by (Toyota) as an accident mitigation system that provides adequate braking in unavoidable frontal collisions, it provides no real safety benefit to consumers who paid for the option through either a sale or lease.”

The plaintiffs also accused Toyota of making false statements about the pre-collision system. “Despite specifically representing in marketing materials that the PCS provides automatic braking in unavoidable frontal collisions, in responding to the IIHS study, Toyota officials falsely claimed that they did not represent that their vehicles had a pre-collision mitigation system. This false statement makes clear that Toyota knew that the class vehicles equipped with PCS did not provide any effective automatic braking in unavoidable frontal collision,” the class action lawsuit says.

The plaintiffs claim that the pre-collision system was a significant part of the bundled technology package, which increased the cost of the Prius V by more than 15 percent.

“Plaintiffs and reasonable consumers would not have paid approximately $1,000 for a (pre-collision system) that did not provide the safety benefit it claimed to provide,” the Prius safety class action lawsuit said. “As a result of the defendant’s actions, plaintiffs and class members have suffered economic damages including but not limited to not receiving the safety feature that they paid for, diminished value and other related damages.”

The plaintiffs are represented by Richard D. McCune and Jae K. Kim of McCuneWright LLP, Daniel H. Chang of Diversity Law Group and Edward W. Choi of Law Offices of Choi & Associates.

The Toyota Prius Safety Class Action Lawsuit is Tae Hee Lee, et al. v. Toyota Motor Sales USA Inc., Case No. 1:3-cv-7431, in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California.

UPDATE: A federal judge dismissed the Prius safety system class action lawsuit on Jan. 9, 2014, without leave to amend after finding the plaintiffs failed to show how they were harmed.