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| Steve Moskos, South Carolina Lemon Lawyer |
Automotive News is reporting that in today’s Congressional hearing, GM executive McCaskill accused a General Motors engineer of lying about his role in the 2006 redesign of the flawed ignition switch that now is linked to 13 deaths. It should now be obvious to everyone that GM “chose to conceal, rather than disclose” this deadly safety defect for more than seven years. Meanwhile, people drove GM cars and some died because of GM's decision.
On Tuesday, House lawmakers released a document from April 2006 showing that GM engineer Ray DeGiorgio authorized the redesign of the now-recalled switch. But DeGiorgio later denied it in in an April 2013 deposition where told a consumer lawyer representing the family of a Georgia woman who was killed when her 2005 Cobalt crashed that he didn’t approve any changes to the ignition switch in 2006. Seems his memory is a little loose.
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| (c) McSwain Engineering |
"I was not aware of a detent plunger switch change," he said. "We certainly did not approve a detent plunger switch change."
As Steve Moskos reminds us, this is precisely why lemon lawyers need to hold manufacturers accountable. Court rules require defendants in court cases to disclose what they know - including what they have tucked away in places they don't want anyone to look. It's called "discovery" by the legal system and General Motors now is seen to have had a long practice of hiding the truth from consumers, their lawyers, the courts, and even the federal safety investigators in charge of motor vehicle safety standards and investigations in this county. GM and its lawyers were required to comply with the law in the litigation process.
All defendants, like GM, are required to speak the truth in court papers and in lawsuits. What we have here is a perfect example of the idealism of the court process with the warped "money first" real-world viewpoint of some large corporations in America. You can't put a corporation in jail for telling lies to judges and juries and the government itself because a corporation only exists on paper, technically. And that may be one reason why you have to do something more. You have to take away the one and only thing that Big Corporations care about, apparently more than anything else.
If federal safety investigators are smart, they will use the Toyota financial penalty as the yardstick by which to measure how to punish GM for its decision to save 57 cents per part and let its customers run the risk of getting killed in their Chevy. For the families of those people who died, the lives lost were worth a lot more than 57 cents.
The entire GM debacle is a reminder that the corporate greed problem that we saw with the Ford Pinto's exploding gas tank, has not really gone away at all. And it won't go away until Congress changes it. And Congress won't change it until American voters make Congress do it.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Known nationwide as a leading Lemon Law attorney, Ronald L. Burdge has represented literally thousands of consumers in "lemon" lawsuits and actively co-counsels and coaches other Consumer Law attorneys. From 2005 through 2018, attorney Ronald L. Burdge has been named as the only Lemon Law Ohio Super Lawyer by Law and Politics magazine and Thomson Reuters Corp., Professional Division. Burdge restricts his practice to Lemon Law and Consumer Law cases. The Ohio Super Lawyer results are published annually in the January issue of Cincinnati Magazine. Ronald L. Burdge was named Consumer Law Trial Lawyer of the Year 2004 by the National Association of Consumer Advocates, the nation's largest organization of consumer law private and government attorneys. "Your impact on the auto industry has been magnified many times over because of the trail you blazed for others," stated NACA's Executive Director, Will Ogburn. Burdge has represented thousands of consumers in Ohio, Kentucky and elsewhere since 1978 and is a frequent lecturer to national, state and local Bar Associations and Judicial organizations. Burdge is admitted to Ohio's state and federal courts, Kentucky's state courts, and Indiana's federal courts. Other court admissions are on a "pro hac" temporary, case by cases basis.