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If you drive a small Chevrolet or Saturn and ended up injured in a crash in which you lost power and an air bag failed to deploy, you may be eligible for compensation.
The issue of defective ignition switches on these cars has made headlines all year and it’s unlikely to go away any time soon. The faulty switches can lead to an unexpected loss of power and cut off power to the air bag, meaning people who were in accidents failed to receive the protection they were meant to have.
General Motors links 13 deaths to this serious defect. Injury lawyers believe there have been far more, not to mention hundreds of people who have been injured.
According to reports, Kenneth Feinberg, a high profile attorney hired by GM, is said to be prepared to pay out billions of the car manufacturer’s money to victims of crashes in GM small cars — provided they can prove the cars’ ignition switches caused the crash.
An Associated Press report stated the faulty ignition switches can slip from “run” to “accessory,” unexpectedly shutting off the engines of the cars in question – primarily Chevrolet Cobalts and Saturn Ions. The loss of power knocks out power steering and brakes and can cause drivers to lose control of their vehicle as well as meaning the air bags will fail to inflate. According to the Associate Press, Feinberg said if the air bags inflated in an accident it will negate a claim because the accident will not have been caused by the defect in the switch.
Feinberg, described in the AP report as the country’s “eminent compensation expert,” said GM has placed no limit on the total amount he will be able to pay to injured people or relatives of those killed. The attorney — not GM — will decide how much claimants will get, even though he is being paid by the company.
“Based on the methodology he plans to employ, a large amount of claims could mean a sum running into the hundreds of millions of dollars, if not billions,” reported AP.
More than 6 million cars have been recalled by GM in one of the biggest faulty products scandals of the decade. GM knew about the defect for years before taking action.
If you or a loved one has been injured due to a defect in a car in Virginia, call Cooper Hurley Injury Lawyers at 757.455.0077 or see CooperHurley.com.