Corporate Accountability Project | Products Liability | Consumer Safety
The Toro Company • Products Liability • 2013–2026
Toro Sold a Lawnmower It Knew Could Kill You
The Toro Timecutter 5000 had no independent brake. The company knew safer alternatives existed. Rebekah Hillman lost her left leg below the knee.
High Severity
Catastrophic Personal Injury
7th Circuit: Trial Required
1
Leg amputated below knee
2013
Year Timecutter 5000 designed
6 ft
Drop onto gravel where mower fell
30°
Max slope a competing brake system handled
9.5°
Slope of Hillman’s yard
20+ yrs
Berry’s licensed engineering experience
TL;DR
The Toro Company designed and sold its Timecutter 5000 zero-radius-turn mower without an independent brake, despite knowing that hydrostatic braking can be completely disabled when bypass pins are engaged. When Rebekah Hillman’s mower rolled down a slope in June 2020 with the bypass pins still in, she had no way to stop it. The mower crushed her legs. Her left leg was amputated below the knee. A federal appeals court ruled in January 2026 that Toro must face trial because industry publications, competing product designs, and components from Toro’s own supplier all demonstrated that a safer alternative was available and feasible. This was not an unavoidable accident. It was a foreseeable consequence of a company choosing not to add a simple brake to a machine it knew could kill people.
Demand that outdoor power equipment manufacturers be held accountable for every safety feature they choose to exclude. A leg is not a fair trade for a cheaper mower.
⚠️ Core Allegations
Core Allegations: What Toro Did
Strict products liability & negligent design • 7 points
| 01 | Toro designed and sold the Timecutter 5000 without an independent service brake, meaning the mower had no way to stop once its hydrostatic braking system was disabled by the bypass pins. | high |
| 02 | The parking brake on the Timecutter was designed only to hold a stationary mower, not to stop a mower already in motion, leaving riders with no effective stopping mechanism if the hydrostatic system was compromised. | high |
| 03 | Toro’s own supplier, Hydro-Gear, had a disc brake design available that could have been integrated into the Timecutter at the time of manufacture. | high |
| 04 | At least one other zero-radius-turn mower manufactured by Toro itself included an independent brake, confirming the company knew how to build a safer product and chose not to include that feature on the Timecutter 5000. | high |
| 05 | The Timecutter lacked a rollover protection system, meaning no roll bar or seatbelt existed to protect the rider if the mower went over a drop or tipped during a crash. | med |
| 06 | The Timecutter lacked a safety interlock that would have prevented the engine from starting when bypass pins were engaged and hydrostatic braking was disabled, removing a critical last line of defense against runaway. | high |
| 07 | The American Society of Agricultural Engineers and the Fluid Power Safety Institute had both published industry guidance stating that hydrostatic braking alone is insufficient and that a dedicated service brake must be included in any vehicle using hydrostatic transmission. | high |
💰 Profit Over People
Profit Over People: Revenue Prioritized Over Safety
Cost-benefit decisions that put consumers at risk • 4 points
| 01 | Toro’s expert argued that adding an independent brake would mean “adding unnecessary cost,” but provided no dollar figure, no cost analysis, and no engineering justification for that conclusion. | high |
| 02 | Expert engineer Thomas Berry described the needed independent brake system as “simple,” identifying a John Deere model that uses a basic lever mechanism rotating two steel pawls against the rear tires, at no extraordinary engineering cost. | high |
| 03 | Toro records from 2005 onward contained loss-of-control incidents involving the Timecutter, indicating the company had years of evidence that its braking system created safety risks and continued selling the product without addressing them. | high |
| 04 | Competing mowers from Scag, a company producing machines “only slightly bigger than the Toro Timecutter,” included more sophisticated independent brake systems, demonstrating feasibility at a comparable market segment and price point. | med |
☣️ Public Health and Safety
Public Health and Safety: The Risks Toro Ignored
Unsafe product design and foreseeable harm • 5 points
| 01 | The Fluid Power Safety Institute warned that hydrostatic braking can fail for many reasons beyond human error, including wear in the motor, valve failure, loss of oil in the reservoir, and unexpected transmission line failure. Toro’s design provided no backup for any of these scenarios. | high |
| 02 | A Hydro-Gear patent in the record confirmed that a “completely open hydraulic circuit” creates conditions for “uncontrolled free-wheeling of the vehicle” and “significant safety risks.” The Timecutter enters exactly that state when bypass pins are engaged. | high |
| 03 | Rebekah Hillman sustained a fractured right knee, fractured bones in her left leg requiring below-knee amputation, and fall injuries when the runaway mower crushed her against a gravel bed below a six-foot retaining wall. | high |
| 04 | The accident slope of 9.5 degrees was well within the range that independent brakes on competing mowers were certified to handle, with the John Deere model rated to 30 degrees, more than three times as steep. | high |
| 05 | The American Society of Agricultural Engineers explicitly stated that “hydrostatic braking must not be considered as the primary braking device for vehicles,” and that a service brake is required to “aid dynamic braking or for use in case of transmission failure.” Toro’s design violated this industry guidance. | high |
⚖️ Corporate Accountability Failures
Corporate Accountability Failures: How Toro Fought Back
Legal strategy, expert exclusion, and standard-compliance shields • 5 points
| 01 | Toro moved to exclude all three of the Hillmans’ expert witnesses simultaneously, successfully convincing the district court to grant summary judgment before the case ever reached a jury. | high |
| 02 | Toro argued that Jennifer Hillman’s failure to remove bypass pins was the real cause of the accident, attempting to shift blame entirely onto the victim’s family rather than examine why the mower had no backup brake for exactly that foreseeable scenario. | high |
| 03 | Toro cited its compliance with the American National Standards Institute standard as an automatic defense, but the 7th Circuit confirmed that ANSI compliance is only one factor in a negligent design analysis, not a complete shield from liability. | med |
| 04 | Toro argued its experts never conducted testing to prove an independent brake would have stopped the mower, while simultaneously having benefited from the district court excluding the plaintiffs’ causation experts on the same grounds, creating an evidentiary vacuum that was manufactured to favor Toro. | high |
| 05 | Toro claimed the uniqueness of this accident (one operator error case in 15 years of records) proved the brake was unnecessary, while the 7th Circuit noted that the records also contained other loss-of-control incidents and that an independent brake protects against all causes of hydrostatic failure, not just human error. | med |
🏛️ Regulatory Failures
Regulatory Failures: How Oversight Broke Down
Standards compliance as a floor, not a ceiling • 4 points
| 01 | The applicable American National Standards Institute standard for zero-radius-turn mowers permitted hydrostatic braking as the primary system, creating an industry floor that fell below what the American Society of Agricultural Engineers and the Fluid Power Safety Institute both recommended. | med |
| 02 | Industry standards are voluntary in the outdoor power equipment sector, meaning manufacturers like Toro can produce machines that industry engineers have independently identified as unsafe and still technically comply with the benchmark standard. | high |
| 03 | No government regulation mandated an independent service brake on zero-radius-turn mowers, leaving consumers reliant on voluntary industry standards and individual lawsuits as the only mechanisms of accountability. | med |
| 04 | The district court’s initial ruling in Toro’s favor, later partially reversed on appeal, demonstrates how manufacturers can secure favorable outcomes at the trial court level by successfully excluding the expert witnesses consumers need to prove their cases. | med |
🕐 Timeline of Events
2005
Earliest date of Toro’s internal loss-of-control incident records for the Timecutter, the time limit set for discovery in this case. Records indicate a history of such incidents prior to the Hillman accident.
2013
Toro designs and manufactures the Timecutter ZRT 5000 without an independent service brake, without a rollover protection system, and without a safety interlock preventing engine start when bypass pins are engaged.
2014
The Hillman family purchases the 2013 Toro Timecutter 5000. The mower enters use on their property in Illinois.
June 2020
Rebekah Hillman’s Timecutter becomes stuck in a flower bed on a sloped backyard. Her wife Jennifer disengages the rear wheels using bypass pins to tow the mower. Jennifer forgets to re-engage the pins. Rebekah restarts the mower, which disengages the parking brake and begins rolling down the slope. Rebekah attempts to jump clear. The mower crushes both her legs. Her left leg is amputated below the knee.
2021
Rebekah Hillman, Jennifer Hillman, and their minor daughter P.J.H. file suit against Toro in federal court under diversity jurisdiction, alleging strict products liability, negligent design, failure to warn, and breach of warranty.
Sept. 30, 2024
The U.S. District Court for the Central District of Illinois grants Toro summary judgment on all claims after excluding all three of the Hillmans’ expert witnesses as unreliable or irrelevant.
Sept. 11, 2025
The 7th Circuit Court of Appeals hears oral argument in the Hillmans’ appeal.
Jan. 21, 2026
The 7th Circuit reverses summary judgment on the independent brake theory, finding expert Thomas Berry’s opinions on the need for an independent brake are admissible and that genuine disputes of material fact require a jury trial. The case is remanded to the district court.
💬 Direct Quotes from the Legal Record
QUOTE 1
Industry standard on hydrostatic braking
Public Health and Safety
“Hydrostatic braking must not be considered as the primary braking device for vehicles at static conditions either with the engine running or the engine off.”
This is from an American Society of Agricultural Engineers report that Berry cited. Toro built a product that did exactly what this industry body said must not be done.
QUOTE 2
Hydro-Gear patent on open hydraulic circuits
Core Allegations
“A completely open hydraulic circuit can lead to uncontrolled free-wheeling of the vehicle and create significant safety risks.”
This language comes from a patent by Hydro-Gear, the very company that made the hydrostatic motor used in the Timecutter 5000. Toro’s own supplier warned of this risk.
QUOTE 3
Fluid Power Safety Institute on the limits of hydrostatic systems
Public Health and Safety
“There are simply too many things that can go wrong.”
The Fluid Power Safety Institute used this phrase to explain why operator error is only one of many scenarios in which hydrostatic braking can fail and why a service brake is essential. The 7th Circuit quoted it twice.
QUOTE 4
Berry on Toro’s knowledge of feasible alternatives
Core Allegations
Toro “knew or should have known of technically and economically feasible design alternatives that would have significantly reduced the risk without adversely affecting the utility of the machine.”
This is the core of Berry’s expert opinion. The 7th Circuit found it admissible and sufficient to create a jury question on whether Toro’s design was defective.
QUOTE 5
On the adequacy of the service brake requirement
Regulatory Failures
“Some type of service brake must be included in the vehicle design to aid dynamic braking or for use in case of transmission failure.”
This is from the American Society of Agricultural Engineers report cited by Berry. The Timecutter 5000 was sold without meeting this standard.
QUOTE 6
7th Circuit on ANSI compliance as a defense
Corporate Accountability Failures
“Compliance with industry standards is a ‘factor to be considered in the balance’ in a negligent design case, not an automatic defense to liability.”
The court rejected Toro’s attempt to hide behind its ANSI certification. Compliance with a minimum standard does not insulate a manufacturer from a jury’s judgment about whether the product was reasonably safe.
QUOTE 7
7th Circuit on the district court’s inadequate analysis
Corporate Accountability Failures
“Announcing that a particular expert opinion ‘simply does not pass the Daubert test’ is ‘a conclusion, not an analysis, to which we owe no deference.'”
The 7th Circuit found that the district court had failed to actually analyze Berry’s independent brake opinions and had instead dismissed them with a conclusory label. That failure required reversal.
💬 Commentary
What exactly did Toro do wrong?
Toro designed and sold a riding lawnmower with a braking system that could be completely disabled by a simple maintenance procedure, without including any backup brake to protect the rider if that happened. Multiple industry bodies had explicitly warned that hydrostatic braking alone is not sufficient. Toro’s own supplier had patented a brake system that could have been added. Toro’s own product line included another mower with an independent brake. Toro sold the Timecutter 5000 anyway, knowing all of this, and a woman lost her leg as a foreseeable result.
Is this lawsuit legitimate, or are the Hillmans just blaming a company for their own mistake?
The 7th Circuit, one of the most respected federal appellate courts in the country, ruled that this case must go to a jury because the evidence of a design defect is strong enough to create genuine factual disputes. The argument that Jennifer’s failure to re-engage the bypass pins was the “real” cause of the accident is exactly what Toro wants you to believe, but Illinois law and the 7th Circuit treat that as a comparative fault question for the jury, not a basis to dismiss the case. Products are supposed to be designed with foreseeable human error in mind. A brake that fails the moment a user makes a common mistake is not a safely designed brake.
How did Toro win at the district court level if the evidence was so damning?
Toro successfully convinced the district court judge to exclude all three of the Hillmans’ expert witnesses, effectively stripping the plaintiffs of the technical evidence they needed to prove their case. Without expert testimony, Illinois law requires dismissal of design defect claims. The district court then dismissed the case before it ever reached a jury. The 7th Circuit found that the district court had not actually analyzed one of the key expert opinions, reversed on that basis, and restored the Hillmans’ right to trial. This is how corporate defendants use procedural tools to kill cases before ordinary people ever get their day in court.
Why does Toro’s compliance with industry standards not protect it from liability?
Industry standards in the outdoor power equipment sector are voluntary minimums, not safety guarantees. The 7th Circuit was explicit: under Illinois tort law, ANSI compliance is just one factor in the analysis of whether a design was unreasonably dangerous. It is not an automatic shield. When industry engineers, the manufacturer’s own supplier, and competing products on the market all reflect a higher standard of safety than what the ANSI minimum requires, a jury is entitled to find that the minimum was not enough. Voluntary standards often reflect what the industry has agreed to accept, not what is actually safe.
Who else is at risk from mowers like this?
Anyone who owns or operates a zero-radius-turn mower that relies solely on hydrostatic braking. The Fluid Power Safety Institute identified multiple mechanical failure modes beyond human error, including transmission line wear, motor wear, valve failure, and oil reservoir loss. These are not rare events. They are the ordinary consequences of aging machinery. Any mower without an independent service brake is a machine that can become uncontrollable through normal wear and tear, not just operator mistakes.
What does the Hydro-Gear patent reveal about what Toro knew?
It reveals that Toro’s own motor supplier knew that a completely open hydraulic circuit creates “significant safety risks” from “uncontrolled free-wheeling.” Hydro-Gear built a disc brake specifically to address this risk, and the design was available at the time the Timecutter was manufactured. Toro chose not to include it. This is not a case of an unknown risk or an unforeseen hazard. The people who built the component inside Toro’s mower had already engineered a solution to the exact problem that cost Rebekah Hillman her leg.
What does the Toro record of loss-of-control incidents since 2005 tell us?
It tells us that Toro knew its mower could lose control, had years of evidence documenting that this happened, and still did not add an independent brake. The company argued that those records made this accident unique because most involved different failure modes than the bypass pin scenario. But the 7th Circuit correctly pointed out that an independent brake would have protected riders from all causes of hydrostatic failure, not just one. A pattern of loss-of-control incidents is not evidence that the product is safe. It is evidence that the product has a problem.
What can I do to prevent this from happening again?
First, if you own a zero-radius-turn mower, check whether it has an independent service brake. If it does not, contact the manufacturer to ask why and whether a retrofit is available. Second, report any near-miss incidents or loss-of-control events to the Consumer Product Safety Commission at SaferProducts.gov. Third, contact your federal representatives to push for mandatory (not voluntary) independent brake requirements for riding lawnmowers. Fourth, support organizations that advocate for stronger consumer product safety regulations. This case is going to trial, but a jury verdict only helps one family. Regulatory change protects everyone.
What happens next in this case?
The case is remanded to the U.S. District Court for the Central District of Illinois for further proceedings on the strict products liability and negligent design theories based on the lack of an independent brake. The failure-to-warn and breach of warranty theories have been dismissed. The court will need to manage pretrial proceedings and, assuming no settlement, conduct a jury trial on whether the absence of an independent brake made the Timecutter 5000 unreasonably dangerous and whether that defect caused Rebekah Hillman’s injuries.
💡 Explore Corporate Misconduct by Category
Corporations harm people every day — from wage theft to pollution. Learn more by exploring key areas of injustice.
- 💀 Product Safety Violations — When companies risk lives for profit.
- 🌿 Environmental Violations — Pollution, ecological collapse, and unchecked greed.
- 💼 Labor Exploitation — Wage theft, worker abuse, and unsafe conditions.
- 🛡️ Data Breaches & Privacy Abuses — Misuse and mishandling of personal information.
- 💵 Financial Fraud & Corruption — Lies, scams, and executive impunity.
