According to a Bloomberg report, lawyers who represented customers who are suing General Motors Co are seeking to combine their lawsuits and have their pick of a judge. The attorneys are reportedly eyeing US District Judge James Selna in Santa Ana, California, who has been overseeing the acceleration cases of Toyota Motor Corp. Selna's handling of the litigation resulted to a $1.63 billion settlement, the news agency said.
Bloomberg said Toyota owners have sued the carmaker, claiming that the recall of over 10 million vehicles globally has reduced their cars' value. At the moment, Selna is still overseeing personal injury cases Toyota has reportedly been settling out of court.
In the March 31 filing to consolidate the lawsuits with the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation in Washington, the lawyers said Selna would be the best fit to handle the litigation as he is uniquely experienced and has the position to handle the GM case.
Attorney Dana Taschner, whose plaintiff is among the many suing GM, said in the filing, "The scope of the expanding recall and number of cars and consumers involved will result in a high volume of lawsuits filed in multiple jurisdictions warranting coordinated or consolidated proceeding."
On Monday, the US automaker has more than doubled its recall-related charges to a whopping $750 million after saying that aside from the ignition defect, faulty power steering in 1.5 million of its vehicles needed to be fixed. For 2014 alone, Bloomberg said GM has recalled around 7 million vehicles across the globe, which had dented its reputation as a quality automaker GM has recently repaired after coming out from a government-sponsored reorganization.
Yesterday, GM Chief Executive Officer Mary Barra disclosed to a US House committee that its company doesn't have all the answers to explain why GM had waited for 12 years to fix the ignition defect.
Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP, a Seattle-based law firm, has filed a class-action lawsuit against GM in Santa Ana last month and had said that it is looking to recover over $350 million for all US owners plus punitive damages for GM's alleged failure to provide information critical to its customers' safety.
