Ruling Confirms Dallas Attorney Todd Tracy Decision to Dismiss Toyota Accident Cases

DALLAS, Jan. 6, 2010 /PRNewswire/ -- Dallas vehicle safety attorney Todd Tracy says a $2.6 million arbitration judgment against a former in-house attorney for Toyota Motor Corp. confirms his decision to voluntarily dismiss a lawsuit to reopen seventeen Toyota rollover accident cases more than a year ago.  

Dimitrios Biller, who helped manage Toyota's vehicle rollover lawsuits, had accused his former employee of a conspiracy to hide evidence in Tracy's cases as well as many others.  A former federal judge ruled on January 5th that Biller had "disclosed confidential information and documents in violation of ethical, statutory and contractual prohibitions" and ordered Biller to pay Toyota $2.6 million in damages.

Last year, Tracy conducted an in-depth review of documents that Biller had delivered to a federal court in East Texas and found no evidence to support Biller's allegations that Toyota hid or destroyed crash safety data. "Not only was there no smoking gun, there was not a whiff of smoke that Toyota had acted improperly.  It was my legal and professional responsibility to inform the court that the case was without merit and to voluntarily dismiss the lawsuit."

Biller's allegations prompted Tracy to file suit in September 2009 in the Eastern District of Texas to reopen 17 cases in order to determine if evidence had in fact been withheld.

In a surprise move a month later, Biller turned over four boxes of privileged attorney-client documents to the federal court raising questions if there was evidence to support reopening rollover accident cases across the nation. Tracy obtained a protective order that set-up a secure process for the documents to be stored and inspected.

Tracy says that in the wake of reports about sudden unintended acceleration the charges by Biller garnered wide spread attention in the legal community and the news media, "Biller presented himself as a guilt ridden whistleblower on a crusade to save the public and correct alleged wrongs.  My review of the Toyota documents a year ago and now the arbitrator's ruling lead me to believe it was all a figment of Biller's imagination."

Occupant safety in vehicle crashes has been the focus of the Tracy Firm for more than 20 years and it will continue as a legal advocate to ensure that vehicle manufacturers, component part manufacturers, and child safety seat manufacturers use safety systems that provide reasonable occupant protection in otherwise survivable accidents.

"I will continue pursuing Toyota and all other vehicle manufacturers on all aspects of vehicle crashworthiness which is the science of preventing and minimizing serious injuries and deaths following an accident through the use of vehicle safety systems," said Tracy.  "I have devoted my career to pushing for safety standards that now equip vehicles with better airbags, stronger roofs and seats, better fitting seatbelts, and structural protection for passenger compartments so that more people survive the impact of crashes."

The safety work for the Tracy Firm will continue because many vehicle manufacturers fail to properly protect people in frontal, side, rear and rollover accidents. The Tracy Firm provides the public with safety information at www.vehiclesafetyfirm.com.

SOURCE The Todd Tracy Law Firm