According to General Motors Co, it is seeking to have a New York court to preside over the lawsuits that were filed by customers who were affected in its ignition-defect recall. Bloomberg said that GM's plan came at the time when lawyers for the customers of the automaker have insisted that the number of people killed due to the car defect was actually higher than the declared count by GM.
The disputes on the number of deaths linked to the GM ignition defect, Bloomberg said, were made yesterday as they seek to combine similar cases in California or in another location aside from New York. One lawyer claimed, without providing proof, that he knew that there are 60 deaths linked to the ignition defect. The news agency said that this might be because majority of the car owners wanted the case to be handled by the California judge who had oversaw the sudden-acceleration lawsuits against Toyota Motor Corp.
Meanwhile, lawyer Andrew Bloomer for GM has asked the seven-member US Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation to send the cases that were filed in Detroit, Miami, and elsewhere to New York so a judge could manage the litigation and will have ease to confer with a bankruptcy judge who have presided the automaker's 2009 reorganization nearby.
Bloomberg said that the panel's decision would be significant, as it will determine whether GM is liable for the ignition defect and if it subsequently owes damages worth billions of dollars to Chevrolet Cobalts and other small car owners. The panel's decision is expected to come within a week.
On the other hand, the debate on the actual number of deaths linked to the ignition defect is ongoing. As GM remains silent on the matter aside from its original acknowledgement, acting National Highway Traffic Safety Administration head David Friedman said on May 23 that the number of deaths linked to the ignition defect could decrease.
