Toyota Lawsuit Judge Names Lead Attorneys for Cases

Source: Bloomberg

By Margaret Cronin Fisk -- The federal judge overseeing sudden- acceleration lawsuits against Toyota Motor Corp. appointed 21 plaintiffs’ lawyers to manage litigation involving U.S. claims.

Toyota, the world’s largest automaker, faces at least 228 federal and 99 state lawsuits including proposed class actions over economic loss and claims of personal injuries or deaths caused by sudden-acceleration incidents. The federal lawsuits were combined April 9 in a multidistrict litigation, or MDL, before U.S. District Judge James V. Selna in Santa Ana, California.

More than 70 plaintiffs’ lawyers sought appointments to leadership positions in the federal lawsuits, including about 60 who spoke at a hearing before Selna yesterday.

Selna’s appointments today include Steve Berman at Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP in Seattle as co-lead counsel for economic loss plaintiffs and Elizabeth Cabraser at Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein LLP in San Francisco as co-lead for personal injury and death cases.

Read more: http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-05-14/toyota-lawsuit-judge-names-lead-attorneys-for-cases-update1-.html

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--With assistance from Alan Ohnsman in Los Angeles. Editors: Fred Strasser, Michael Hytha.

To contact the reporter on this story: Margaret Cronin Fisk in Detroit at mcfisk@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editor responsible for this story: David E. Rovella at drovella@bloomberg.net.

Selna is currently serving as a federal judge on the United States District Court for the Central District of California at the Santa Ana courthouse. Selna was nominated by President George W. Bush on January 29, 2003, to a seat vacated by J. Spencer Letts. He was confirmed by the United States Senate on March 27, 2003, and received his commission the same day.

He was selected on April 9, 2010 to manage the consolidated multidistrict litigation arising from the 2009–2010 Toyota vehicle recalls.

Controversy

Selna issued the decision in C. F. et al. v. Capistrano Unified School District et al., issued on May 1, 2009. Selna decided that the teachers words violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_V._Selna