Toyota seeks to overturn verdict; judge calls case a 'minefield'

Calling the case a "minefield of potential appellate issues," U.S. District Judge Ann Montgomery listened Wednesday to arguments by Toyota attorneys seeking to overturn an $11 million verdict in a trial they lost in February.

Requesting a new trial, Toyota attorney David Graves said an attorney for the families who won the case used "sleight of hand" in closing arguments. The defense goes first in civil trial closing statements, so plaintiffs' attorney Bob Hilliard made the final argument.

"The jury was misled," said Bard Borkon, a Toyota lawyer. "We did not have an opportunity to respond to it."

But the families' lawyers said the evidence supported the closing arguments and Toyota was recycling claims that were rejected at trial.

The case involved Koua Fong Lee, who was driving a 1996 Camry in 2006, with family members aboard, when he exited Interstate 94 in St. Paul and rear-ended a 1995 Oldsmobile Ciera, killing the driver, his son, and injuring three others, including the driver's daughter, who later died.

During a three-week trial that ended in early February, Hilliard argued that the Camry's accelerator mechanism had a design defect that caused two pulleys to overheat and stick, so the car sped up while Lee frantically pumped the brake.

Toyota contended there was no defect and Lee had accidentally pressed the accelerator, rather than the brakes.

Toyota argued Wednesday that while the jury found it 60 percent at fault, Lee was found 40 percent at fault and should pay 40 percent of the verdict.

Lee's lawyers said if Toyota wanted Lee to pay, it should have made him a third-party defendant before trial.

Borkon said an expert witness who testified that the pulleys overheated never tested to see how much the temperature rose. A Toyota-run test up to 128 degrees, he said, was too low for pulleys to stick. He said the witness never said the accelerator repeatedly got stuck at higher levels, as Hilliard said in his closing argument.

But attorney Marion Reilly, representing Lee on Wednesday, said that Toyota's tests were flawed and that ample testimony from witnesses showed how the pulleys could overheat and stick at higher temperatures.