The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s $16.4 million civil penalty against Toyota could bolster legal claims that the automaker committed consumer fraud and racketeering. It also could assist plaintiffs attorneys in obtaining thousands of documents for use in their cases, according to plaintiffs lawyers and legal experts. The fines may also boost class actions filed on behalf of shareholders, said Darren Robbins of Robbins, Geller, Rudman & Dowd, which has a class action pending against Toyota.

A Georgia jury held an alleged drunk driver responsible for $15 million in damages to a girl injured in a car accident, but the plaintiff likely will get only a fraction of the award because the driver has few resources and the designer of the seat, which broke during the wreck, was cleared by the jury. Complicating matters was the bankruptcy-mandated dismissal of what was then DaimlerChrysler from the case.

Plaintiffs lawyers spearheading the litigation against Toyota on behalf of consumers with recalled vehicles announced Monday that they have added RICO claims, alleging that the automaker falsely denied for the past decade that its vehicles are subject to sudden unintended acceleration and other defects. One of the attorneys making racketeering claims against the automaker estimated that damages against Toyota could soar to more than $24 billion a year.

Lawmakers fired questions Wednesday at two Toyota executives about whether the company’s lobbyists are too cozy with government regulators and whether those relationships slowed the response to complaints about the automaker’s safety record. The hearing, the second on Capitol Hill this week, also served as a forum for lawmakers to debate proposals related to the U.S. tort system

Toyota executives head to Capitol Hill today for the first of three hearings on the automaker’s product safety record — a trip to the political woodshed that could get the company into a deeper legal thicket in courts around the country. Plaintiffs lawyers on Monday said they will be watching testimony closely