GM won't limit ignition switch crash compensation
Source: AP-EXCITE
By JOAN LOWY and TOM KRISHER
WASHINGTON (AP) — Kenneth Feinberg is prepared to pay out billions of General Motors' money to victims of crashes in GM small cars — provided they can prove the cars' ignition switches caused the crash.
GM links 13 deaths to a defective ignition switch in cars such as the Chevrolet Cobalt and Saturn Ion. But trial lawyers and lawmakers say claims of wrongful death and injury could total in the hundreds.
Feinberg, one of the country's top compensation experts, said GM has placed no limit on the total amount he can pay to injured people or relatives of those killed. And he alone — not GM — will decide how much they each will get, even though he is being paid by the company and it didn't like some of the program's provisions.
Feinberg wouldn't estimate the ultimate cost for GM, saying he has no idea how many death or injury claims he will get. 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.
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FILE - In this March 24, 2014, file photo, Kenneth Feinberg, administrator of the One Fund Boston Compensation Program, speaks at a forum at Boston University in Boston. Feinberg said there is no limit on the total amount he can pay people harmed in crashes caused by faulty General Motors ignition switches. Feinberg announced the terms of the compensation plan Monday, June 30, 2014, in Washington.(AP Photo/Elise Amendola, File)
