Toyota said on Friday that it would begin negotiations to settle hundreds of pending federal and state lawsuits over the sudden acceleration of its vehicles.

The decision comes two months after a Toyota Camry’s electronic throttle system was found to be defective by an Oklahoma jury. In that case, the jury found that Toyota had acted with “reckless disregard,” despite reports of problems in the cars, and was liable for a crash in 2005 that killed one woman and injured another.

Toyota had won its first three sudden-acceleration trials; the Oklahoma verdict was the automaker’s first loss. Legal analysts said that the verdict most likely spurred Toyota to pursue a broad settlement of its remaining cases.

“I think Toyota believed that the Oklahoma case exposed the company to much greater liability than was previously thought,” said Carl Tobias, a professor who specializes in product liability at the University of Richmond School of Law.