Just a few days after recalling more than 2.3 million vehicles due to a sticky gas pedal, Toyota Motors revealed it knew of the issue last year, but didn’t think it covered enough vehicles to warrant a recall. While Toyota claims the problems have not caused any injuries or deaths, ABC News reported that four deaths could be linked to the gas pedal defect. Toyota dealers across the country have been told to help on a “case-by-case basis,” until Toyota can fix the problem.

The family of a 23-year-old girl who died of drug overdose last year has reached an undisclosed settlement with Morgans Hotel Group and Hard Rock hotel-casino executive Ed Scheetz after he allegedly supplied her with cocaine and oxycodone. According to the lawsuit, Scheetz lives a lifestyle of drug addiction and prescription medication abuse that involved Michelle Hatchel, his girlfriend at the time. A wrongful death suit filed by Hatchel’s father had previously been settled by Scheetz “and/or other named defendants.

A family has filed a lawsuit against McLean Hospital in Belmont Monday for allegedly failing to properly treat a woman’s mental illness, which they claim resulted in the death of their two children. In January 2008, Marcelle Thibault walked her twin sister’s young children into traffic on Interstate 495, killing the children and herself. Thibault was diagnosed with severe bipolar disorder at McLean in 2007, but the lawsuit claims that her sister, Danielle Lambert, was never told of the risk she might pose to herself and others. Lambert says in the lawsuit that she never would have allowed Thibault to babysit had she known of the risks, and accuses the hospital of the wrongful death of her children.

The family of a boy who was severely injured in a school bus accident on Jan. 9 has filed a lawsuit against the bus driver and the bus company, claiming the driver should not have legally been driving the bus that injured their son and killed another boy. The lawsuit claims that the driver, Paul Burns, was licensed to drive buses weighing no more than 26,000 lbs. and with no more than 15 students on board. That day the bus weighed 29,800 lbs. and carried 16 students. The plaintiffs allege their son “sustained serious injuries, including to his chest, hip, muscles, nerves and bones.” The bus company is on the Connecticut state watch list because of chronic regulatory issues, the Hartford Courant reports.

A California-based medical device company was negligent for urging doctors to use a pain pump in an unapproved and unsafe manner among patients recovering from shoulder surgery, an Oregon jury has found. In the lawsuit, Matthew Beale claimed that use of the pump, manufactured by I-Flow Corp., destroyed cartilage in his shoulder and left him disabled. Jurors ordered I-Flow to pay $4.75 million in combined damages to Beale and his wife.

The city of New Orleans settled two lawsuits last week centering around police brutality and misconduct. In one case, a lawsuit alleged that the owner of the Sportsman’s Corner bar was arrested, tased and beaten after police executed an illegal search of the bar. In the other suit, a group of off-duty police allegedly shouted racial epithets towards a group of African-American men at a bar before following them outside and beating them. The settlement amount in the first lawsuit was not revealed. The city agreed to pay $25,000 to settle the second lawsuit.

The Connecticut Department of Transportation settled a lawsuit last week filed by an employee who alleged she was bypassed for promotions and wrongly accused of harassment. Christine Aubrey says that she was suspended for 15 days in 2006 based on a false harassment claim by a male co-worker and was subsequently passed over for a promotion she was qualified for. In the settlement, the DOT promoted Aubrey to principal engineer, paid her legal fees and gave her $16,000 in back pay.

Toyota Motors issued a 2.3 million automobile recall Thursday when it was discovered that accelerator pads may stick, causing the vehicle to unintentionally speed up. The recall covers car and truck models 2005 to 2010. This recall includes the 2005-10 Avalon; 2007-10 Camry and Tundra; 2008-10 Sequoia; 2009-10 RAV4, Corolla and Matrix; and 2010 Highlander. It also covers the 2009-10 Pontiac Vibe. The recall stemmed from an accident in December where four people died when an Avalon sped off the road into a pond

A Pennsylvania jury has ordered the Mercer County Housing Authority to pay $1.6 million to the widow of man killed in a 2007 accident with a truck owned by the agency. In the verdict, jurors found the agency and the driver of the truck were negligent in the crash. PennDOT and other defendants previously agreed to pay $400,000 to settle separate claims related to the crash.

A church day care gave a 5-month-old child an unknown amount of over-the-counter pain medication leaving the child in a state of distress, a lawsuit filed by the child’s parents claims. According to the lawsuit, the child’s mother made an announced visit to the day care and found her child smelling of medicine and near an empty bottle of acetaminophen. The day care was not authorized to give the child medication, an attorney for the family said.