Attorney E. Todd Tracy, head of the national vehicle crashworthiness law firm the Tracy Firm, headquartered in Dallas, Texas, has issued the following announcement:
Most everyone has now heard of the General Motors recalls. The news is everywhere. My law firm has watched the early evolution of this recall campaign and the enormous media blitz focusing on it.
Not wanting to publish erroneous information, the Tracy Firm has reserved comment until now.
Yesterday, General Motors asked a federal court in Texas to postpone a lawsuit filed against it claiming damages and injuries from ignition-switch defects in models of GM cars built before GM’s 2009 bankruptcy.
“This was to be expected,” said Mr. Tracy, who, in 2009, had dozens upon dozens of his clients’ lawsuits destroyed by the New York bankruptcy court, “and I expect General Motors will try and wiggle out of these suits as well.”
However, Mr. Tracy believes that since the defects were concealed by General Motors before its 2009 bankruptcy, the bankruptcy was, in at least some respects, fraudulent, thereby hopefully making it null and void with regards to ignition switch claims against GM.
“General Motors will most likely try this same approach in many federal venues. It won’t be long before we have some rulings. At this early stage, there may be as many as 200 deaths or catastrophic injury cases that have occurred because of these defects. Even though GM claims to only be aware of 13 fatalities at this time, that obviously does not make it so,” according to Mr. Tracy. “Especially when GM has concealed information for years, and also when there are 4.5 million vehicles out there with these faulty switches, as well as a recall campaign which is refitting vehicles at a snail’s pace, the numbers will almost certainly rise dramatically.”
Equally disconcerting is the fact that a federal court in Corpus Christi, Texas, recently announced that consumers will not be made to park their recall vehicles saving General Motors from an astronomical increase in recall costs. The court deferred this issue to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) stating that, “The court is of the opinion that NHTSA is far better equipped than this court to address the broad and complex issues of automotive safety and the regulation of automotive companies in connection with the nationwide recall.”
So far it appears as if the defect only affects vehicles in this manner:
- The faulty ignition switch can move from “run” to “off” while the vehicle is in motion or the position of the ignition module will allow a driver to easily bump a dangling set of keys causing the same effect.
- This causes a sudden loss of power where the driver loses their power steering and the airbags are disabled.
Almost assuredly there exists the potential for this type of electronic defect to affect the vehicle in other ways. Mr. Tracy says that he has already received information from a consumer that her Cadillac spontaneously fired the airbags when a key was inserted into the ignition.
Vehicle Safety Attorney, E. Todd Tracy has tried 124 cases against GMC, Ford, Chrysler, Toyota, Nissan, Mazda, Honda, Mitsubishi, Ferrari, TRW, Key Safety, Allied Signal, Breed, Takata, JCI, and Dorel Juvenile Group.
Mr. Tracy strongly suggests that if you have been injured or had a loved one killed in a GM vehicle, and you think it could be related to the GM recall, to contact his law firm and discuss it with one of the attorneys or staff members.
Source: E. Todd Tracy, The TRACY Firm | April 17th 2014 | View (PDF)
