Frame settlement technical clarification--aka Fake News

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More information re: the filing of appeals by two class members...
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I have come to realise that the media's portrayal of the settlement in the Brian Warner et al v. Toyota USA (BWvTUSA) class action suit has been modeled to imply that a trial or some legal action took place and Toyota "lost". However that is just not so and its being reported as such has created no small amount of misinformation and confusion.

Fact is the matter was settled out-of-court and the suit was "dismissed with prejudice" by the court in which it was filed:

from the Final Judgement document:


But, WTF does that mean?

In the first it means that Toyota was not "found guilty", did not admit any "guilt", or accept any liability beyond the terms of the settlement agreement--an arrangement negotiated and constructed by the plaintiff's (Brian Warner et al) and the defendant's (Toyota USA) attorneys.

Nor does it offer Toyota USA any opportunity to "appeal" the settlement, it's a settlement they agreed to last December!

What the court did was affirm that the Settlement Agreement was "fair, adequate and reasonable, appears to be the product of arm’s-length and informed negotiations, and treats all members of the class fairly."; issue a Final Order binding all parties to that agreement; and dismiss the lawsuit with prejudice (more about that below).

This is not an adjudicated ruling eligible for appeal. Both parties agreed to the terms prior to the final order and are now by the court's order bound to the terms of that agreement

Further it means that all of us who did not explicitly request exclusion from the class and those who were not class members to begin with¹, have forever given up our right to go after Toyota for any rusted frame issue--ever.

That's the with prejudice part. I.e. "the court" is "pissed off" that the litigants wasted its time and used it as a tool to leverage an out-of-court agreement that they could have done anyway without loading up the court's docket with a bunch of back-and-forth B.S.


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¹ - This is good news for those that purchased '05 to '10 Tacomas after 12/2/2016 as it leaves them free to pursue Toyota individually or in a new class action suit--and as Toyota settled favourably in the BWvTUSA action it should not be too much of an uphill battle.

 

Apparently the settlement did get appealed by someone, its on the website. I don't understand what people want.

 

That notice was not there yesterday--I wish they had indicated who filed an appeal. I have sort of a feeling, somewhat bolstered by comments people have made as to their discussions with Toyota, that it may have been Toyota.

Anything filed with the court should be available at the clerk of courts website--I'll ask a friend (a former assistant) to see what she can dig up...

 

If someone appealed my guess is that they want to include those who purchased after Dec 2016 to be included and also increase the 12 year window to 15 or something like that. Basically include more people. But like @cliffyk stated in another thread, this is going to screw over people who are running out of time on their 2005 and 2006 trucks.

 

People who bought after December can not appeal because they are not included on the settlement. I doubt Toyota appealed they were the ones who created the settlement. Who ever appealed should of just let the ball roll. Now not even the lawyers are getting their millions of bucks haha

 

But it could have been someone who was a member appealing for more time or more something...either way it sucks for those who were ready to get their new frames.

 

Yeah dude sucks for me

 

Sorry to hear that. Hope it either gets resolved quickly or turns out better for everyone. At least you have until 2018 right now.

 

Found the appeals (actually my friend found 'em)--it seems a couple of butt holes, who are class members, have filed appeals:



These two had filed objections that were rejected by the court in the Final Order (see pages 20 and 21)--now they are back. My friend read the final judgement and feels the court's rejections of the initial objections is solid; however the filing of these appeals (which may be rejected with no action) will delay implementation of the final order. If delayed more than 60-90 days it could reset the whole thing and require re-negotiation of the settlement agreement.

I really do not like lawyers...

 

This is the actual settlement agreement: http://www.toyotaframesettlement.co...ent_with_Exhibits_Combined_Filed_11_15_16.pdf

Go to page 28. Basically the plaintiff's lawyers will pocket close to $10 million from Toyota. While the vehicle owners will just get an expansion of an pre-existing Toyota service campaign on frame inspection undercoating / replacement.

 

Here are the appeal filings:

Cemil Hope (PDF, 104 kB)
Gay Hopkins (PDF, 1.6 MB)

 

@cliffyk would you be able to decipher those filings for us? I am not well versed in legal proceeding and would like to not pass judgement upon the folks who filed appeals until we know what they want.

 

Those are both just notices of appeal, a "head's up" to the court with no real "meat"--we won't know the alleged basis until the appeals are actually filed. I'll see if I can get updates from my friend but she has real work to do too.

The sad part is for those with severely damaged frames; that this could add months to things getting underway, especially if the settlement has to be re-negotiated, re-approved, etc...

 

Actually (and what I am about to say in no way alters my opinion of lawyers) for a settlement of this magnitude (an estimated $3.5B) the $10M to the lawyers is not all that much. I've seen class action suits settled for far less where the attorneys got far more...

 

I wonder if those 2 work for Toyota. It doesn't matter what they appeal it for. The longer they drag it out, the less frames they have to replace, due to people selling or crashing their truck.

 

^That's not quite true. If you take your truck in for inspection and it passes, an undercoating job is all you get. There's no further warranty on the frame like the 15 years Toyota gave in the 1st gen campaign. So it's cheaper for Toyota if everyone takes their truck in right away.

No doubt Toyota's team of 7 lawyers recognized this as well. However, the Toyota service campaign was pre-existing. i.e. Toyota would've spent ~$3.4B anyway just for the sake of customer satisfaction, if the class-action lawsuit didn't exist.

 

If you have a 2005-2008 truck with a severely damaged frame, you are covered by the existing service campaign. The settlement expands the range to cover 2009-2010 trucks, though very few in that range are expected to have 10mm rust holes already.

 

I was under the impression (based on this notice for LSC-E0D) that the 2005-2008 campaign--just a CRC application for certain states--expired in March 31, 2016. Was that modified, or was some other campaign launched?

I cannot find any additional notices other than the 1995-2000 campaign and an extension of some "in some instances" for 2001-2004 models. We did a lot of research into this before I bought my '09...

 

There is an existing service campaign?

 

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads...aign-for-corrosive-resistant-compound.329708/