“According to court documents, the GM testimony also indicated that they rejected the fixes as not an acceptable business case”
Marietta, GA (PRWEB) April 30, 2014
The recently-announced recall of 2.6 million vehicles by General Motors (GM) with regard to faulty ignition switches* in some models, has its roots in a meeting between the parents of crash victim Brooke Melton, and Georgia attorney Lance Cooper. That meeting ultimately led to the GM lawsuit, Melton v. General Motors (Case No. 2011-A-2652), filed by Cooper on behalf of the Meltons. In an interview with LawyerandSettlements.com, and in court documents** Cooper reveals the Melton family first consulted his office following their daughter’s death out of concern that Brooke’s car had impacted another vehicle. They wondered if their daughter’s estate might be liable.
Moreover, they also had questions surrounding the behavior of the car leading up to their daughter’s accident. The grieving parents noted that Brooke had the car serviced just a few days before the accident, after finding the engine had a tendency to stop running seemingly of its own accord. Brooke had received the car back from the dealer the day before her accident, assuming the car had been repaired**.
“According to court documents (Victor Hakim Melton v. General Motors, Civil Action No. 2011-A-2652, State Court of Cobb County, State of Georgia)**, Brooke was seat-belted, driving at or about the speed limit and sober, according to the investigating officer,” Cooper said, in comments to LawyersandSettlements.com’s Brenda Craig. “We wondered what could have happened to make her lose control. It was a straight two-lane road. It certainly raised our suspicions.”
The attorney’s first priority was to access the damaged Cobalt’s data recorder, or black box. The court documents state that, according to the black box data, Melton was traveling somewhere between 55 and 58 mph shortly before the crash and that the key was in the accessory position—not in the on or start position--when the impact occurred.
Beyond the issue of the engine shutting off, is the potential that airbags could fail. An investigation opened in February by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration(NHTSA) speaks to the possibility of an airbag system issue in concert with the failure of an ignition switch to remain in the ‘run’ position. ***
“In some cases,” states the NHTSA document, “the timing of the ignition switch movement relative to the activation of the sensing algorithm of the crash event may result in the airbags not deploying.”
In their lawsuit against GM, Brooke Melton’s parents agreed to an undisclosed settlement—the terms of the settlement were subject to confidentiality agreements according to Cooper.
According to court documents, the GM testimony also indicated that they rejected the fixes as not an acceptable business case. And now in 2014, we have all these crashes and fatalities (as many as 12), and in February 2014, GM finally issued a safety recall. It is too late for Brooke, of course.
According to an NHTSA document*** GM notified the NHTSA on February 7th of this year that it was recalling 619,122 model year 2005-2007 Chevrolet Cobalt and 2007 Pontiac G5 vehicles for the aforementioned ignition switch defect. On February 24th, GM notified NHTSA that it was amending their original recall letter to include a more detailed accounting of the defect. This was followed a day later by a further expansion of the recall to include other models totaling an additional 748,024 vehicles.
The expanded GM recall covers model year 2006-2007 Chevrolet HHR and Pontiac Solstice, model year 2003-2007 Saturn Ion and model year 2007 Saturn Sky.
Lance Cooper is the founding partner at Cooper Law Firm in Marietta, Georgia. He represented the Melton family in their GM lawsuit.
*"GM Recalls Reach Nearly 7 Million”, CNNMoney, April 1, 2014, money.cnn.com/2014/04/01/news/companies/gm-recalls/
** Victor Hakim Melton v. General Motors, Civil Action No. 2011-A-2652, State Court of Cobb County, State of Georgia, s3.documentcloud.org/documents/1065854/0310gmdeposition.pdf
*** US Department of Transportation, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), ODI Resume, Investigation # TQ 14-001 Recall 14V-047, 2/26/14, safetyresearch.net/Library/2014-02-26_TQ_Opening_Resume.pdf
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