ST. CHARLES — A suburban man who was injured after the gas pedal of his rented Toyota Corolla stuck and caused a crash is suing both Toyota and Hertz.
Ed Izenstark, of west suburban St. Charles, claims in a lawsuit filed Friday in Cook County Circuit Court that he was “seriously injured” after the stuck gas pedal left him unable to stop at an intersection, resulting in a crash with a third party.
His passenger in the Corolla was also injured in the crash, which occurred Dec. 26, 2009, at the intersection of 7th Street and West Main Street in St. Charles, according to the suit.
The suit seeks judgment against Toyota Motor Sales, U.S.A., for negligence and strict liability, alleging that the carmaker “carelessly and negligently designed, manufactured and sold” the Corolla, which the suit calls “entirely unfit for duty and unsafe for use.”
The suit also alleges Toyota is liable for “failing to discover that the vehicle at issue was dangerously defective, improperly designed and manufactured, [and] inadequately tested and inspected.”
The New Jersey-based Hertz Corporation, which claims on its Web site to be the “largest general use car rental brand in the world” was also named as a defendant in the suit.
The lawsuit seeks judgment against Hertz for negligence, alleging that it made the vehicle available for rent “knowing, or in a situation where it should have known, of problems with the Corolla at issue or the Toyota recall or future, intended recall.”
A Toyota spokeswoman told the Sun-Times Monday that 5.6 million Toyotas have been affected by two recent recalls: 2.3 million for the sticky accelerator pedal, 2.1 million for both the pedal and for improperly placed floor mats which also caused gas pedals to jam, and the rest solely for the floor mats.
The three-count suit seeks more than $150,000 in damages, in addition to costs of the suit.
Read the original article from WBBM News Radio.