According to Congressman Edolphus Towns, Toyota deliberately withheld key vehicle design and testing evidence in lawsuits filed by Toyota drivers injured in crashes due to faulty Toyota cars. Representative Towns is chairman of the oversight committee and sent a letter to Toyota’s top North American executive that accused Toyota of settling cases with injured parties before having to disclose its testing data on potential problems with Toyota vehicles.
To put it in Representative Towns’s own words, Toyota’s internal documents "show a systematic disregard for the law and routine violation of court discovery orders in litigation." Toyota responded by stating that it is common for defendants to object to demands for documents made in lawsuits.
The federal regulators involved in this extended saga have accused Toyota of concealing safety problems over cases of sudden unintended acceleration due to gas pedal problems. This claim made by the House of Representatives only goes to further substantiate Toyota’s overall climate of secrecy and profit-over-safety.
