NEW YORK — The Toyota saga, though quiet for the moment, will continue. "Lawyers Vie for Lead Roles in Toyota Lawsuits," said a headline in The Wall Street Journal (March 15). The company's "legal bill for unintended-acceleration cases will be in the billions," predicted Jeremy Anwyl of Edmunds.com, writing for The Washington Post (March 16). This is a litigious society or, as the Japanese call it, Lawyers' Paradise.
So far, two aspects of the matter have drawn my attention: cultural and mathematical.
When Akio Toyoda, president of Toyota, agreed to appear in a congressional hearing, a friend of mine in Japan who spent some years in this country, sent me an article by a Japanese writer living in New Jersey, saying he fully agreed with him. The writer, Akihiko Reizei, writes an online Japanese column called "911/USA Report." The article in question had to do with his strong advice to Toyoda on his appearance in Congress. Apparently unsolicited, it read like a confidential legal brief. The first thing Reizei told Toyoda was: Never, ever apologize.