Uncivil Suit

As if Toyota's problems weren't bad enough from a criminal standpoint, the civil charges against the automaker now include federal racketeering charges.

Using federal racketeering laws to amend the consumer class-action complaints, which have grown in number to more than 80 suits in at least 40 states, exposes Toyota to much greater potential liability.

Under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization Act, a commercial enterprise can be found liable for triple the damages for any harm caused by its fraudulent activities.

As a result, litigation that originally stood to reap more than $2 billion in damages for Toyota owners could end up costing the cash-rich Japanese automaker in excess of $10 billion, said Tim Howard, lead counsel for a team of law firms handling about half the cases.

Each of the revised lawsuits is "a much more robust and thorough complaint than the first rounds because of how the evidence has evolved since then," Howard said.

A Toyota spokesman could not be immediately reached for comment on Wednesday. The automaker has declined to comment on pending litigation to date. 

While Toyota definitely deserves to pay if their products are guilty of beinf defective, my immediate thought on reading this story was "If only there was this kind of effort to go after the banks for their defective securities products that cost us trillions..."

Here endeth the lesson.