A U.S. federal jury ordered Toyota Motor Corp. on Tuesday to pay approximately $11 million after determining an accelerator defect in a 1996 Camry was the reason for a 2006 fatal car crash in Minnesota.
Jurors deliberated for four days after a three-week trial before determining Toyota was 60 percent liable for the crash, plaintiffs lawyers told Reuters. The driver of the Camry, Koua Fong Lee, was found 40 percent responsible for the incident.
Plaintiffs said that the crash was caused by a defect in the vehicle's accelerator, which caused it to become jammed, and the brakes failed to work properly.
Toyota was denying that the car was the reason for the crash, of course, and argued that the driver had been negligent. A company spokeswoman told Reuters that it is currently weighing its legal options.
The 1996 Camry was not covered by Toyota's recall of 10 million vehicles between 2009-'10 over acceleration problems.
The trial resulted from a lawsuit filed on behalf of passengers injured or killed in a 2006 crash in St. Paul, Minnesota. Lee said he was driving his car with it started to accelerate as he approached other vehicles stopped at an intersection, according to court filings.
During the incident, the Camry reportedly slammed into an Oldsmobile Ciera, killing the driver, Javis Trice-Adams Sr., along with his 9-year-old son, according to a 2010 lawsuit. A 6-year-old, who was also in the car, was paralyzed and later died as a result of the incident. Two other passengers were seriously injured as well.
Lee was then charged in connection with the crash and served three years in prison for vehicular homicide, his lawyer, Robert Hilliard, said according to Reuters. Lee won a motion to set aside his conviction in 2010, and he was released from prison.
Though Lee won't be able to get the years he spent in prison back, he is glad that the jury rejected Toyota's attempt to place the blame completely on him, according to Hilliard.
See Now: OnePlus 6: How Different Will It Be From OnePlus 5?
