Texas lawyer in recall suit accuses GM of coverup
DETROIT -- A Texas lawyer representing owners of recalled General Motors vehicles is accusing the automaker of conspiring with an outside law firm to cover up evidence that ignition switch defects caused deaths.
The motion, filed at a federal court in New York, accuses GM and King & Spalding, a global law firm that helps defend GM in certain personal injury cases, of failing to share with regulators and plaintiffs attorney crucial information about the ignition switches.
By no later than October 2010 -- more than three years before New GM issued the first of a series of recalls -- King & Spalding warned that juries would award significantly larger punitive damages "if the company had to disclose information that it knew that air bags were not deploying in accidents involving 2005 through 2007 Chevrolet Cobalts, said Robert Hilliard, who filed his motion in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.
GM called the motion "largely a rehash of issues discussed publicly over a year ago."
"Moreover, GM already has produced to plaintiffs substantial amounts of privileged material, including many of the very communications sought in their current motion. We strongly deny the accusations in the motion and will file an appropriate response."
U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Robert Gerber ruled April 15 that GM's 2009 bankruptcy reorganization protected it from lawsuits seeking compensation for lost value of vehicles recalled for the ignition switch defect. Hilliard, who represents some of those plaintiffs seeking lost value, is appealing Gerber's ruling.
Most people injured and families of those killed in accidents involving the defective ignition switches have sought compensation through a fund administered by attorney Ken Feinberg. So far, Feinberg has found 111 deaths were caused by the defect and surviving families are eligible for at least $1 million in compensation.
Settlements have been offered to about 12 people who suffered life-changing injuries.
GM has estimated that the compensation fund will cost it between $550 million and $600 million after the remaining claims, about 300, are reviewed.