If you think you deserve some cash because your Toyota has lost value due the automaker's safety debacle, you got a lucky break yesterday.

A federal judge tentatively threw out Toyota's attempt to dismiss a class-action against it that contends that owners lost value in their vehicles because of publicity about the brand's safety defects. The class amounts to about 40 million owners, Reuters reports.

Those economic-loss cases, which seek damages from owners even if their particular car hasn't shown a sudden-acceleration defect, could be among the tougher to prove. They represent the broadest class of owners, as opposed to other lawsuits that cover owners who actually reported sudden-acceleration problems and those who say they had accidents as a result.

U.S. District Court Judge James Selna in Santa Ana, Calif., held that the economic-damage cases can go forward.

Toyota has maintained there is no mystery to its sudden acceleration problems. It blames them on floor mats that can jam underneath accelerators or an gas-pedal mechanism that can wear and cause it to stick. But it denies that its engine computers are at fault.