US Supreme Court declines to review ruling on GM’s liability over faulty ignition switch

The US Supreme Court yesterday declined to review a lower-court's ruling that GM was liable for claims for deaths or injuries arising prior to 2009, when it filed for bankruptcy.

The compensation fund that the company had set up made payments to over 100 such claimants, but a bankruptcy filing typically wiped out past liability, GM had argued in court.

Last year, however, a federal appeals court said prebankruptcy claims could proceed and the company then asked the Supreme Court to review that ruling.

The Supreme Court's decision meant that several hundred remaining unsolved wrongful death and personal injury claims against GM could be heard in state courts for resolution or even trials.

''There are a lot of cases out there that either are going to have to be settled by GM or litigated, now that the Supreme Court is not getting involved,'' said Robert C Hilliard, a lawyer who was handling 243 claims against GM, which included cases involving 27 deaths.

According to his estimates, over 1,000 cases were outstanding.

The ignition switch, which was at the core of the issue was used mainly in the Chevrolet Cobalt and Saturn Ion small cars that GM started producing in 2002 and 2003.

The switch tended to switch off by itself, which left the car without power and disabled its airbags.

Customer complaints dated to 2002, but the company had not issued recalls until 2014, which was several years after it filed for bankruptcy, when most of its assets were bought by a government-backed entity called New GM.

A New York court found in 2016 that GM knew or should have known about the defect and did not properly notify people during the bankruptcy process, in violation of due process which raised questions over the sale deal.