GM Ignition Nightmare Won’t Go Away, for Victims or Company
Rosie Cortinas, center, lost her son Amador Cortinas in a Chevy Cobalt accident.
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Automaker faces first trial out of hundreds of claims
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Plaintiffs want billions of dollars for deaths and injuries
Zachary Stevens was a teenager headed to bible study when his Saturn Sky shot across a Texas highway into a pickup and killed the driver. Ruben Vazquez, 20, died after a drunk slammed into his stalled Chevy Cobalt on a California freeway. James Yingling III couldn’t brake or steer his Saturn Ion away from a culvert in Pennsylvania. He lingered for 17 days before dying at 35.
These are among the claims facing General Motors Co. this year, the first of hundreds demanding that GM pay for the deaths of loved ones or injuries ranging from broken bones to paralysis. The raft of trials, scattered across the country, begins Monday in federal court in Manhattan.
Engineers at America’s biggest automaker, which got a $50 billion government bailout in the financial crisis, knew of a flawed ignition switch but rejected a fix that would have cost 90 cents apiece, according to