Members Michelle Schaffer and Jacob Lantry secured a defense verdict on behalf of Toyota Motor Corporation; Toyota Motor Sales U.S.A., Inc.; and Toyota Engineering and Manufacturing North America, Inc. as part of Toyota’s trial team in a 10-day trial in Waterbury, Connecticut Superior Court in July of 2023.  The suit was brought on behalf of the estate of a young woman who was struck and killed by an elderly driver and alleged that the driver’s 2014 Toyota Corolla was defectively designed and unreasonably dangerous because it was not equipped with emerging forward collision warning and automatic emergency braking technologies.  The plaintiff asked the jury to award $102 million in damages.  After deliberating for only 8 minutes, the jury returned a verdict in favor of Toyota finding that the vehicle was not defective.