Toyota Attacks Alleged Evidence of Accelerator Software Bug
Amanda Bronstad
The National Law Journal
2013-08-19
Toyota Motor Corp. has moved to strike evidence from a software expert
who claims to have identified a bug in the electronic throttle control
system source code that plaintiffs attorneys blame for unintended
acceleration by Toyota vehicles.
Michael Barr, who specializes in embedded
software programming, was deposed on July 3 in as a plaintiffs expert in
the first bellwether trial of hundreds of cases pending in federal
court .,,,,
Toyota moved on August 9 to strike Barr’s
report, arguing that plaintiffs attorneys were merely attempting to
improperly assert a new defect theory. Plaintiffs attorney Todd Walburg,
in an August 14 response, insisted that Barr was merely supplementing his
own testimony and that of another expert.
“Plaintiff’s source code experts have located the software bug in
Toyota’s electronic throttle control system source code that explains
why Mrs. Ida St. John’s 2005 Toyota Camry accelerated out-of-control
from a stop sign,” Walburg wrote. “This software bug
likely also explains the numerous other reported Unintended
Acceleration incidents that have initiated at low speeds and when
drivers are parking or stopped at an intersection.”
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