More details have emerged regarding the upcoming depositions of former and current GM employees.
We were previously kept in the dark about how many GM (and Delphi) employees were to deposed but a report by The Detroit Free Press has illuminated several details.
Up to 35 current and former GM employees, including CEO Mary Barra, will be questioned later this year about what they knew and when.
Robert Hilliard, a lawyer from Corpus Christi, Texas, will lead the personal injury portion of the lawsuit, which will start in May with Alicia Boler-Davis, GM senior vice president. Hilliard expects the depositions will end in October with Barra, who is slated to be the last GM employee to go under the lawyer’s verbal knife.
The list of people to be deposed also includes 15 ex-GM employees, all of whom were sacked for not revealing the extent of the ignition switch problem to their higher-ups in due time.
GM declined to comment on the case but it did confirm that it had received a schedule of the deposition dates.
The plaintiffs, who decided to opt out of settlements offered by Ken Feinberg’s GM Ignition Compensation Fund, could also decide to settle the case.
We’ll see how it all plays out beginning in May.
Comments
Don’t you just love this legal beagle deposition technique ? Just keep hammering away with more depositions and the defendant soon builds up a huge legal expense debt . Indeed , some cases have been known to settle , even though no wrong was done , just to stop the hemorrhaging of money to the legal community . What a wonderful world we live in , sue your neighbors , especially your employers , businesses , those with deep pockets , why even the government …..and the legals really love class action suits . Got no money for a legal beagle , no problem , they will just take a huge chunk out of your proceeds . Considering you had nothing before the suit , anything is better than nothing , right ?? Ain’t life grand , unless , of course , you consider the incredible increase in insurance costs , bankruptcies , destroying reputations and personal lives . The USA , home of the brave and the sued….see you in court , someday , right ?
I agree that they are using a shotgun approach to try and find some smoking gun. I believe that Valukis found and reported properly everything he could find at GM. That is why he is deposing EVERYBODY at GM that MAY have heard of this switch issue.
However Valukis never got much from Delphi. That is the only data that may throw a ringer here. From what I know it probably could only be something from purchasing and engineering when they first made the part change without changing the part number and so far that is only at the lowest level (release engineer and buyer).
I do also think that Barra will in no way give in and settle.