The Santee Lexus Crash: Gomez Settles the Case That Set Off Toyota's Sudden-Acceleration Recall

In August 2009, a loaner Lexus ES 350 carried four members of one family onto a San Diego County freeway near Santee. The accelerator stuck. The sedan reached more than 120 mph, struck a sport utility vehicle, launched off an embankment, rolled several times, and caught fire. A passenger reached a 911 dispatcher before the crash and reported that the car would not slow down. All four people inside died.

The driver was Mark Saylor, a 45-year-old off-duty California Highway Patrol officer. Killed with him were his wife, Cleofe Lastrella Saylor, also 45; their 13-year-old daughter; and Mark's brother-in-law, Chris Lastrella, 38. The recorded emergency call, made from inside the speeding car, turned a private loss into a national news story within days.

Investigators with the San Diego County Sheriff's Department concluded that an incompatible all-weather floor mat, the wrong size for the car and installed at a Bob Baker Lexus dealership, had trapped the gas pedal. The finding pushed Toyota into one of the largest recall campaigns in its history, covering millions of vehicles over floor-mat entrapment and unintended acceleration. The Saylor and Lastrella deaths became the case most closely tied to that recall.

John Gomez represented the Saylor and Lastrella families in their claims against Toyota. The company pointed to the dealership and the floor mat rather than any defect in the vehicle itself, and it refused to concede fault. Gomez pressed the wrongful-death claims toward a resolution while that public fight over responsibility continued.

In September 2010, the two sides reached a settlement through mediation. Toyota did not admit liability. The parties agreed to keep the figure private, but the Los Angeles Times and the Associated Press went to court arguing that the public's interest outweighed the secrecy. In December 2010 a judge ordered the amount disclosed: $10 million. Gomez told a San Diego television station that Toyota had not admitted wrongdoing as part of the deal.

Toyota issued a statement on December 23, 2010, describing the agreement as a private settlement reached with both families and saying it was disappointed the sum had been disclosed. Because the case ended in a negotiated settlement rather than a jury verdict, there was no award to be reduced or remitted on appeal.