Claim: Toyota withheld docs

For anyone naïve enough to think that Toyota's problems couldn't possibly get any worse, well, they just did. Rep. Edolphus Towns, chairman of a House committee looking into the automaker's handling of safety issues, says that Toyota "deliberately withheld" records in connection with a lawsuit about rollover crashes. In a letter to Toyota executive Yoshimi Inaba, Towns says that previously sealed documents "indicate a systematic disregard for the law and routine violation of court discovery orders in litigation." No word yet on specifics, but every lawyer handling a Toyota liability case must be smacking his or her lips.