A U.S. bankruptcy judge has ruled a $1 billion settlement over General Motors’ faulty ignition switch claims cannot be enforced, a major blow to affected owners.
Judge Martin Glenn issued the verdict and threw out the settlement, which would have issued $1 billion worth of stock to owners of cars fitted with defective ignition switches, The Detroit Free Press reported. The settlement would have covered millions of claims over economic loss and between 400 and 500 personal injury and wrongful death claims.
After the trust, which handles “Old GM’s” liabilities prior to bankruptcy, met with “New GM” last August, the trust walked back on the $1 billion settlement. Lawyers for the car owners never officially signed the deal. Previously, Judge Glenn said the whole ordeal didn’t pass the “smell test,” but GM’s lawyer argued, “Sometimes people simply get cold feet.”
GM has already paid $2.5 billion to settle other various claims over its faulty ignition switches, which were officially linked to 124 deaths. GM also paid a $900 million charge to drop all criminal investigations at the Department of Justice.
Comments
Outstanding! Thank goodness there are still smart people in the world that can make rational decisions. GM shouldn’t have to pay one dollar to these people! They are not victims, they are people that couldn’t control their car.
That’s so right. You can’t control for stupidity, If people are stupid enough to trust their lives to a GM product they deserve what they get.
Brian W. are you really that stupid? just asking because this subject has been beaten to dead and GM did nothing wrong only stupid people with 2 lb of keys and they still had to hit the key to turn it, they deserve to have what’s coming to them.
Not one ounce of sympathy for these people