General Motors will settle with 124 families over deaths resulting from faulty ignition switches that were installed in the 2.6 million small cars recalled last year, including the Chevrolet Cobalt and HHR, Pontiac G5 and Sky, and Saturn Ion and Solstice. This marks a somber end to a yearlong review of fatality and injury claims stemming from defects the automaker hid for 13 years.
-The settlement fund was set up in June 2014 weeks after a damning internal audit that found company employees failed to report safety problems since 2001. It began accepting claims last August under the direction of lawyer Kenneth Feinberg, who previously oversaw funds for victims of 9/11 and the Boston Marathon bombing, among others. As of today, the review found GM liable for 124 deaths and 274 injuries of drivers and passengers in the affected vehicles.
-Before creating the fund, GM said it knew of 13 switch-related related deaths. By March of this year, the death toll had swelled to 64 and then almost doubled within the next four months. Claimants will be paid at least $1 million each and must agree to drop all current lawsuits and forgo any in the future relating to the ignition switch. Another 350 death and 3588 injury claims were deemed ineligible, with six additional minor injury claims awaiting final review. The submission deadline was January 31, which GM extended by one month after reports surfaced that it never contacted the first victim's family.
-The company has paid $280 million to victims' families through mid-July and expects settlements to total $625 million, according to a second-quarter SEC filing.
-A separate 2013 lawsuit involving the parents of Brooke Melton, a 29-year-old woman who died in a 2005 Chevrolet Cobalt when her car stalled, found that GM had secretly redesigned the switch without changing the part number. The older switches were manufactured with torque thresholds that were low enough that the key could slip out of the run position, thereby disabling the engine, power assists, and safety features that included airbags. GM settled with the Melton family a second time after the company did not disclose all of its available documentation proving the part had been changed.
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- Criminal Charges May Come Soon for GM over Ignition Switches -
- Inside NHTSA: What Happened With GM Recalls Could Easily Happen Again -
- GM Internal Audit: One Ugly Mess -
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The actual number of deaths attributable to the flaw could be much higher as pending cases outside the settlement fund get underway. GM is currently facing 172 lawsuits alleging injury or death relating to some of the 26.8 million vehicles GM recalled in 2014. There are also 100 class action suits alleging economic harm from these recalls. Some of these lawsuits (along with many others) are part of the 212 cases lumped into a multi-district litigation within the Southern District of New York, where GM wants to face all of them at once. Other plaintiffs are appealing an April ruling from a U.S. bankruptcy court that granted GM immunity from all products built before its 2009 bankruptcy filing, which could reduce any non-settlement-related damages to pennies on the dollar. GM is also facing ignition-switch investigations by 50 state attorneys general, a criminal probe by the Department of Justice, and a separate review by the Federal Trade Commission over GM dealers selling used cars without recall repairs.
-from Car and Driver Blog http://ift.tt/nSHy27
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