BREAKING: Jury Says GM Sold Faulty Ignition Switches, But They Didn't Cause Crash

by Steph Willems

Updated: August 14th, 2020 Published: March 30th, 2016

breaking jury says gm sold faulty ignition switches but they didn t cause crash

A federal jury has concluded that while General Motors sold cars with defective ignition switches, they weren’t the cause of a Louisiana accident, Reuters is reporting.

The two-week trial — the second related to the scandal — concerned the crash of a 2007 Saturn Sky on a New Orleans bridge that complainants Dionne Spain and Lawrence Barthelemy said was caused by a faulty ignition switch.

GM countered the suit by claiming the crash was caused by icy roads, and not the faulty ignition switches linked to 124 deaths. Their attorney, Mike Brock, contended that the accident was part of a weather-related pile-up, and that the complainant’s Sky wasn’t travelling fast enough to cause significant damage or injuries.

The verdict stated that while the ignition switch rendered the vehicle “unreasonably dangerous,” and GM didn’t warn the public of the dangers, the accident couldn’t be blamed on it.

As a result, the complainants won’t be awarded damages for the accident, despite claiming to have suffered injuries from it.

The automaker won a partial victory on March 28 when a key fraud claim was thrown out of court. An earlier trial targeting GM failed to reach a verdict.

GM began recalling about 800,000 affected vehicles in February, 2014. To date, it has paid out about $2 billion in penalties and settlements related to the ignition issue.

#Federal #GeneralMotors #GM #GmIgnitionSwitch #Lawsuit

Steph Willems

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7 of 23 comments

Thegamper on Mar 30, 2016

I haven't really been following it that closely, but as I understand it, GM making the victim compensation fund is basically an admission of fault for the ignition switches. The cases coming to court now are people who were rejected by the fund as GM feels that the ignition switches had nothing to do with the crashes/injuries/deaths in question. My guess is that any publicity on this is bad for GM so they would probably only pick cases to reject that were fairly obvious slam dunks in a courtroom.

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JimZ on Mar 30, 2016

make sure this is read by the VW fans who claim GM got off with a "slap on the wrist."

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- RobertRyan on Mar 30, 2016
  
  My feeling is VW will remove itself from the US and close the dealerships. Save it money in the long run and looks like it will fix the affected cars. Getting money from the organisation, could make the whole issue a lot nastier
  
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- Hydromatic on Mar 30, 2016
  
  @RobertRyan I still believe VW will somehow come away from its woes with a figurative slap on the wrist. The EPA will broker a settlement of sorts so it can still say it has teeth. VW won't be run out of the US on a rail.
  
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1audiofile on Mar 30, 2016

I was not privy to all the testimony in the court case, but depending how an ignition switch failed and where the care was on the road I fail to understand how they could make a blanket statement about the accidents. If the car was heading into a sharp corner and the ignition switch failure cuts power to the engine the steering could suddenly become very difficult and the brakes could lose assist. If the car left the road due to this problem it is hard to understand the judgement. But again, I did not hear all the testimony.

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- DeadWeight on Mar 30, 2016
  
  It's a question of fact for jurors to decide, not a matter of law for the trial court (i.e. judge) to decide. In other words, whether or not the ignition switch is a defective, dangerous condition will not be the relevant issue to be established by the jury, but whether the malfunction of the ignition switch was the proximate cause of the alleged injuries or death will be the question of FACT that the jury (after hearing a battle of the defense and plaintiff expert witnesses) will alone decide.
  
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Cargogh on Mar 30, 2016

A few years ago my brother thought that he'd misplaced his keys to his company's Impala SS only to realize he had them in my sister's new Suburban ignition, which started and ran the same. With the security code and all, it was surprising then. Not so much now.

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