A lawsuit filed against General Motors claiming its faulty ignition switch was responsible for a crash involving a 2007 Saturn Ion has been thrown out by the judge presiding over the case.
The plaintiffs in the case, Sandy Brands, Jay Brands and Emma Leyba, filed a suit against GM alleging the automaker’s faulty ignition switch moved into the ‘Off’ position while Sandy Brands drove her 2007 Ion on a California highway. They claim this shut down power to the car, causing it to crash and then preventing the airbags from deploying.
However, investigators collected data from the Saturn’s diagnostics module, and found that the module never lost power during the accident and also recorded two “non-deployment” crash events that were not hard enough to trigger the airbags. U.S. District Court Judge Jesse Furman, who has overseen the various GM ignition switch cases, says the plaintiffs “bear the burden of proving that the alleged ignition switch defect in Brands’ 2007 Saturn Ion was a substantial factor in causing the accident and resulting injuries,” and decided to dismiss the case due to a lack of evidence.
GM’s lawyers argued that the module data prevents “a reasonable fact finder from concluding that the ignition switch inadvertently rotated, let alone that it caused the accident and airbag non-deployment.” Testimony from Emma Leyba, who was Brands’ passenger at the time of the crash, was also taken into consideration. Leyba said that “as far as [she knew], the engine was running the entire time up to the point where it made contact with the center median,” in the crash and she had no “evidence or knowledge or observation of the ignition switch cutting off.”
As Car Complaints points out, GM still faces hundreds of individual lawsuits from people who claim its faulty ignition switch was responsible for crashes and airbag non-deployments.
GM recalled 2.4 million vehicles in 2014 after it was found that the faulty ignition switch could be bumped by the driver’s knee and easily revert into the ‘Off’ position while the car was in motion, disabling the engine, power steering and other crucial systems, thereby increasing the risk of a crash. GM paid roughly $595 million to various victims of the faulty ignition switch via its compensation fund. According to GM data, the faulty ignition switch resulted in 124 deaths, 18 serious injuries (such as quadriplegia, amputation and burns) and 257 injuries that required some degree of medical treatment.
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Source: Car Complaints
Comments
This is exactly what should of happened to all of the lawsuits and cases!!!
If the ignition actually turned off, the engine would had stopped, removing power to thee drive train. The brakes still work, the steering is still unlocked, you can still steer and stop the vehicle, even in the middle of the road, and prevent the accident. Train yourself and your family how to drive a vehicle without power, because any gas vehicle with any mechanical failure can stop the engine and lose power.
Gas or electric can stop anywhere with mechanical failure or run out of fuel or power.
This is so true! All of the accidents were either the cause of the driver or failure to control the vehicle.
GM had zero fault in these crashes and should not have been forced to pay one dime or had any negative impact on GM.
They had to find a scapegoat and they were not willing to blame the victims and GM was just that the scapegoat!!!
Telling the victims they were at fault required a backbone and nobody had the nerve to do so
If you investigate these most of the crashes involved drink, drugs, speed or all three.
The air bag module had capacitors inside to temporarily power it through it’s deployment sequence, designed this way because a battery could be torn away in a collision. So, it doesn’t matter where the ignition switch is, the air bags should still work. Sombody is not telling the whole story here!
Most of these accidents involved compact cars. GM no longer has a compact car in its U.S. lineup.
Coincidence?
The truth is car sales are in a massive decline. GM even replaced most of these models with a new car twice. For example two Cruze models.
No they’re blaming it on switches when it’s actually the junk ecm that costed 3 bucks to make but they want 1100 to replace it. My sex has 70 thousand miles on it when everything started failing. My wife was almost t boned when this overpriced piece of cheap went dead at a crossing. It started having the same symptoms as the switch the way they’re describing it. My power steering,traction control,security system and abs have all stopped working but the motor runs. I’m no engineer but I know about cars and repair my own and they had to know the computer was the culprit but they got lucky because of faulty key dibs turning the switch off when bumped by a knee so they blame it on the switch and divert attention away from the more expensive problem. Its actually the switch and even together that are causing the problem. Luckily for them they could keep everyone hanging in court long enough to sway judges with false or incomplete testing data to make consumers look like the real crooks and gm looking like a victim. In most cases if they had replaced the center switchproblems would have come pouring in and vice versa. Now I’m stuck with a 7 thousand dollar financed pos that has all new exhaust cuz the ecm said it was bad,the struts pop,the good won’t stay up,the rear end pops due to seal recall and now the ecm is bad. Ill pay for it to keep my credit but I won’t drive it!!! And it hasn’t even hit 90 thousand miles!!!! The rich stay rich while we pay their bills. Karma is a birch GM!