Discovery Order in Toyota MDL incorporates elements of parallel state and federal administrative investigations

The National Law Journal reports that the California federal judges hearing the Toyota MDLs has approved a new joint discovery plan.

Of interest to civ pro folks is the fact that the plan takes advantage of discovery and facts already prepared for cases pending in other states and from a federal administrative investigation:

In their joint discovery plan, the parties submitted 21 topics to be covered in depositions, including the location and access to documents and people associated with the electronic throttle control systems in Toyota vehicles -- specifically, documents in two state court cases in Michigan and California.

Discovery will include information about customer complaints and internal studies of sudden unintended acceleration, the whereabouts of electronic data recorders and Toyota's advertising, sales and public relations materials. Toyota must provide nonprivileged documents that it produced earlier this year to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Congress and state attorneys general.

RJE