Feinberg: A Modest Window To File Recall-Related Claims

Bloomberg reports the compensation fund designed by attorney Kenneth Feinberg for General Motors will have “a relatively modest timetable to invite claimants to file their claims” once the claim period begins August 1. Feinberg also said by the end of June, he and his team will have a program “that will define who’s eligible to file a claim… what the dollars will look like for those who file,” as well as the obligations the plaintiffs will need to have “to prove their claim.” GM CEO Mary Barra added that her company won’t know the final cost of the fund “until the actual compensation has been run,” though an estimate may come at the end of Q2 2014.

On the other end of the scale, The Detroit News reports the automaker has come into full compliance with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration in the agency’s request for documentation about the recall, bringing an end to the $7,000/day fine put in place for non-compliance. The total penalty paid to the NHTSA will come to $420,000 from the time the clock began on April 4 — after the automaker failed to answer in full by the previous day the 107-question survey to sort out the recall’s handling — through June 5, the day the Valukas Report was published and distributed to all concerned parties. The fine is in addition to the $35 million maximum fine levied upon GM for the decade-plus delay prior to recalling the out-of-spec ignition switch at the heart of the matter, and is due by July 4; the $35 million fine is due this Friday.

Meanwhile, Georgia lawyers Lance Cooper and Jere Beasley claimed in a statement that GM is attempting to move the nearly reopened wrongful death lawsuit on behalf of the family of Brooke Melton to bankruptcy court in New York in an effort to use the liability shield established in the automaker’s exit from bankruptcy in 2009 to deflect the new claim. Melton’s family had accepted a settlement in September 2013 under allegations her 2010 fatal accident behind the wheel of a 2005 Chevrolet Cobalt was the result of the defective switch on-board, one of 13 total fatalities so linked thus far. Alleging GM hid evidence in bankruptcy, Cooper and Beasley filed a lawsuit last month to reopen the case and set aside the settlement.

Finally, Autoblog reports GM has filed a trademark claim with the United States Patent and Trademark Office to reserve the name Zora for “motor land vehicles, namely, automobiles.” The name is part of the automaker’s heritage, as Zora Arkus-Duntov helped take the Chevrolet Corvette from a low-powered roadster with European flair, to a fire-breathing beast on the track and in the showroom through the car’s first two generations. The publication speculates the name could be used on a special edition Corvette somewhere down the road, especially if linked to a Grand Sport model; Arkus-Duntov led the Grand Sport program that established the Corvette as a racing legend during the C2 era.