General Motors has been caught in the midst of a legal hellstorm. Since its recall of millions of vehicles, the company has been atoning for the way it recklessly and wantonly put people’s lives at risk in order to protect its own profits.
“Companies have a responsibility to test and inspect the products they intend to market and sell to the American public,” said Megan McBride, defective product attorney with Levin, Papantonio P.A. “The company’s conduct, in selling the ignition switches after they became aware of the defect, appears inherently reckless.”
At issue for many people are the faulty vehicle ignition switches that GM was aware of when it continued to sell them to people. The switches would allow the vehicle to randomly shut off at the slightest disturbance. The effect was potentially lethal. If an accident occurred during one of the incidents when the vehicle had randomly shut off, the airbags would not deploy.
Even after the threat was known and the danger was reported within GM, the company didn’t immediately recall the potentially deadly vehicles. Instead, GM engaged in a series of cover ups and minimizations to try and limit letting the public know how much damage had been done.
At the beginning of this year, the company was pinged with a $10 billion lawsuit resulting from the ignition switch failures.
It’s just one lawsuit of what will surely be many more to come for a company that seems to have made putting consumers at risk its corporate practice.
Joshua is a writer and researcher with Ring of Fire. You can follow him on Twitter @Joshual33.
