Nissan Calls Pair’s Spy Charge ‘Absurd’

A Costa Mesa couple’s charges that the Nissan Motor Corp. planted a Japanese man in their house as a corporate snoop are “totally absurd” because the young employee was “very up front” about his efforts to study the automotive habits of an American family, officials with the firm said Friday.

In a statement issued one day after Stephen and Maritza French filed suit against the auto maker, Nissan officials said Takashi Morimoto made it clear that he was renting a room from the family as part of his research on the American car-buying public.

“Mr. Morimoto was very up front with the French family about the fact that he worked for Nissan, and that he was in the U.S. to better understand U.S. life styles and attitudes about cars,” the one-page statement said. “Far from being secretive, he was plainly seen in the neighborhood photographing various cars, homes and garages.”

The statement went on to attack the basic underpinnings of the lawsuit and the news coverage it sparked, saying “the saddest element” of the entire episode was “that our judicial system would even allow (the French’s lawsuit) to be filed.”

“Nissan is in the business of building cars,” the statement continued. “We try to build cars that meet the needs of Americans by studying the way Americans drive and buy their automobiles. That the media, the courts and our legal system are being tied up because Mr. Morimoto did research on how we buy and use cars is a truly regrettable situation.”

It also noted that Nissan employs more than 7,000 people in this country and provides jobs for 50,000 others through 1,100 independent dealerships.

“That our employees and our dealer’s employees have to be tainted by this absurd lawsuit and unfair publicity is indeed unfortunate,” the statement concluded.

For several years, Japanese auto makers have dispatched researchers to study American families in an effort to better understand the U.S. car-buying public. Typically, the families are asked to voluntarily participate in the research.

The French family does not dispute that they were aware that Morimoto, who rented a room in their house for six weeks last summer, worked for Nissan.

But they contend in their lawsuit, filed Thursday in Orange County Superior Court in Santa Ana, that Morimoto never made it clear he would be conducting a minute investigation of their life style so that the auto maker could better design cars for the U.S. market. The family said they first learned Morimoto was acting as a sort of automotive operative upon reading an article in The Times that detailed his mission.

The lawsuit and charges the auto maker with fraud, invasion of privacy, trespassing and unfair business practices.