A four-week jury trial in Great Falls, Montana was averted after Toyota Motor Corporation agreed to settle a products liability action brought against the company in which our firm alleged that the 1987 Toyota 4Runner has an unreasonable propensity to roll over in foreseeable driving maneuvers. Despite a wealth of information about the rollover propensity of sport utility vehicles like the CJ Jeeps, the Suzuki Samurai and the Ford Bronco II, Toyota introduced the 4Runner in 1984. The 4Runner was apparently rushed into production to compete with the Chevrolet Blazer, Jeep Cherokee and Ford Bronco and Explorer.
After accurately modeling the 1987 4Runner's vehicle characteristics, the steering and braking inputs of our client and the terrain at the accident scene, a computer simulation was developed resulting in a video animation which demonstrated that the 1987 Toyota 4Runner was defective in design which caused the vehicle to have an unreasonable propensity to roll over in foreseeable driving manuevers. We then modeled the 1996 Toyota 4Runner's vehicle characteristics (redesigned by Toyota for better stability) and ran it through the accident scene terrain and again duplicated the driver's steering and braking inputs. The 1996 4Runner did not roll over; it merely spun out. Finally, we made minor modifications to the 1987 4Runner's design and again ran the vehicle through the accident sequence. Like the redesigned 1996 4Runner, the modified 1987 4Runner did not roll over, demonstrating that minor modifications to the vehicle would have prevented the accident.
Discovery revealed that Toyota was well aware of the stability defect demonstrated by our computer simulation. In 1989, Toyota developed a "fish hook" test to determine how the 4Runner would perform in an emergency maneuver. The "fish hook" test involves driving a vehicle on flat, dry pavement at a predetermined speed and abruptly turning the steering wheel to the left 180 degrees and then back to the right 360 degrees. During Toyota's "fish hook" test, the 1988 Toyota 4Runner, which is identical to the 1987 model, rolled over at 32 miles per hour. The 1985 Jeep Cherokee and the 1985 Chevrolet S10 Blazer were tested along with the Toyota 4Runner, but neither of these vehicles rolled over at any speed tested.
On March 16, 1989, shortly after conducting the "fish hook" tests, Toyota made a presentation to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's ("NHTSA") Roll-over Committee, which was in the process of evaluating a petition for a Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard relating to rollover prevention. Toyota informed NHTSA that the "fish hook" test was "more suitable for simulating real world emergency driving conditions" and was the best test for determining whether vehicles will roll over if subjected to emergency maneuvers. Yet, Toyota waited until the 1996 Toyota 4Runner was designed before it utilized the "fish hook" test during development of the new design which corrected the stability defects revealed in its 1989 testing.
In addition to designing an extremely unstable vehicle, Toyota further compromised the safety of the 1987 Toyota 4Runner by covering the rear portion of the vehicle with a fiberglass roof. All 1984 through 1989 Toyota 4Runners are equipped with fiberglass roofs. The 4Runner is not the first vehicle manufactured by Toyota with a fiberglass roof structure.
On March 16, 1989, shortly after conducting the "fish hook" tests, Toyota made a presentation to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's ("NHTSA") Roll- over Committee, which was in the process of evaluating a petition for a Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard relating to rollover prevention. Toyota informed NHTSA that the "fish hook" test was "more suitable for simulating real world emergency driving conditions" and was the best test for determining whether vehicles will roll over if subjected to emergency maneuvers. Yet, Toyota waited until the 1996 Toyota 4Runner was designed before it utilized the "fish hook" test during development of the new design which corrected the stability defects revealed in its 1989 testing.
In addition to designing an extremely unstable vehicle, Toyota further compromised the safety of the 1987 Toyota 4Runner by covering the rear portion of the vehicle with a fiberglass roof. All 1984 through 1989 Toyota 4Runners are equipped with fiberglass roofs. The 4Runner is not the first vehicle manufactured by Toyota with a fiberglass roof structure.
In 1958, Toyota began marketing Toyota Land Cruisers with fiberglass roofs. In 1973, a Montana jury found that the fiberglass roof structure on the 1969 Toyota Land Cruiser was unreasonably dangerous and defective after an occupant of the vehicle was ejected and killed when the roof came off during a rollover accident. The jury's decision in that case and countless other lawsuits had no affect on Toyota's decision to manufacture 1984 through 1989 Toyota 4Runners with fiberglass roofs.
Moreover, Toyota's preproduction testing of the 1984 Toyota 4Runner with a fiberglass roof revealed that the roof was likely to detach in a rollover accident unnecessarily exposing occupants to injury and death. As part of its development of the 1984 4Runner, Toyota conducted dynamic rollover tests of a Chevrolet Blazer and a Ford Bronco, both of which were equipped with fiberglass roofs. The roofs on both vehicles came off during the tests.
Toyota then conducted dynamic rollover tests on prototype 1984 Toyota 4Runners to determine whether its fiberglass roof would also come off during a rollover accident. In all, Toyota conducted five such tests, two of which resulted in the roof detaching from the vehicle while the other three sustained significant cracks to the fiberglass. Lynn Johnson and Patrick Hamilton litigated this case and are currently handling several other crashworthiness cases.
