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GREENSBORO — A Greensboro man is suing Toyota and a local Lexus dealership that sold and maintained a car he says involuntarily accelerated, leading to an accident in December.

William Lee Hemphill , 88 , is suing Toyota Motor Corp. , Toyota Motor Sales U.S.A. and Flow Imports Inc. in Winston-Salem for more than $10,000 for personal injury and property damage to his 2004 Lexus LS430 , according to a civil suit filed last week in Guilford County Superior Court . Hemphill also seeks an undisclosed amount in punitive damages.

Toyota owns and operates the Lexus division.

“More than 2,000 people have been killed or injured with these certain accelerator issues,” said Hemphill’s lawyer, Vance Barron Jr. “I don’t think Toyota has been leveling with the American public.”

Barron said Hemphill is in a rehabilitation center in Greensboro with a broken leg suffered Dec. 11 . In the lawsuit, Hemphill says the car went into an “uncontrolled rapid acceleration” out of a parking garage. Hemphill avoided hitting any pedestrians, but his car “bounced off a pillar of the building and smashed head-on into an electrical transformer, knocking out power to the building and the nearby hospital.”

It was the second time the car accelerated involuntarily, according to the lawsuit.

Hemphill said he took the car to Flow Lexus of Greensboro in the fall to be repaired. The service manager and mechanic told Hemphill that they fixed a broken hook on the floor mat on the driver’s side, drove the car and checked it with a computer. They said the Lexus was safe to drive, according to the lawsuit.

Hemphill bought the car from Flow Imports in February 2004 , and it had been in good condition until 2009, according to the complaint.

Victor I. Flow , president of Flow Imports, said he does not comment on litigation. He did say, however, that this was the first lawsuit against his company related to Toyota and accelerator issues.

Contact Dioni L. Wise at 373-7090 or dioni.wise@news-record.com