Four more plaintiffs’ attorneys will lead the personal injury and wrongful death cases against Toyota Motor Corp., while a handful of others may gain access to the coveted source code software at the heart of the litigation over alleged sudden acceleration defects.
U.S. District Judge James Selna, in an order memorialized on Thursday, granted the plaintiffs’ steering committee’s request to add four attorneys to its existing seven. The judge added that he was inclined to grant additional plaintiffs’ lawyers access to Toyota’s source code, according to attorneys who attended the hearing. Thus far, access has been limited to 13 plaintiffs’ attorneys in the multidistrict litigation, most of whom are members of the steering committee or have bellwether trials coming up.
