Biller gets cleared to use Toyota documents
Friday, September 10, 2010 at 2:48PM It's no exaggeration to say that the entire product liability bar is dying to know what is in the Biller documents:
An arbitrator has ruled that a former Toyota Motor Corp. attorney can use internal company documents to press his claim that he was hired to "plan and carry out discovery fraud" on behalf of the company.
The ruling, which comes over objections from the automaker that the documents were privileged, did not determine whether Toyota committed such fraud. Instead, the decision found that former Toyota attorney Dimitrios Biller could use internal e-mails, test reports, memos and other documents as evidence in the case.
If what Biller claims is true - that Toyota commited discovery fraud to win cases - the fallout will be enormous. For one thing, all of the cases Toyota won might be reopened. The sanctions could run into the many millions of dollars. Attorneys could be disbarred. I hope these documents see the light of day so we can all decide for ourselves just how damning they really are.
