#BUSINESS NEWS DECEMBER 28, 2017 / 2:41 PM / UPDATED 2 HOURS AGO

GM wins ruling that could narrow ignition switch litigation

Jonathan Stempel
3 MIN READ

NEW YORK (Reuters) - General Motors Co on Thursday won a court ruling that could reduce the private litigation it faces over flawed vehicle ignition switches, which have been linked to 124 deaths and triggered a big recall.

U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman in Manhattan said the plaintiffs in two bellwether cases, involving accidents where airbags had deployed, could not introduce expert testimony to show how defective ignition switches might have played a role in the crashes.

The plaintiffs said their GM ignition switches might have rotated from “run” at the moment of impact to “accessory” or “off,” causing the accidents or making them worse, and then back to “run” before the airbags deployed.

But Furman, who oversees multi-district litigation (“MDL”) over the ignition switches, including 213 cases where airbags deployed, called the expert testimony “unreliable” because there was no evidence that “double switch rotation” occurred anywhere.

“The court recognizes that these conclusions may have a significant impact on a swath of cases now pending in the MDL and, thus, does not reach them lightly,” the judge wrote.

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