U.S. vehicle maker General Motors claimed a legal victory after a Texas jury ruled that a faulty ignition switch was not responsible for a fatal crash in 2011.
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Before jurors began deliberating Thursday afternoon, Josh Davis, one of Stevens’ attorneys, said during closing arguments that the faulty switch shut off all the car’s safety systems, causing Stevens to suffer a skull fracture and traumatic brain injury in the accident.
Attorneys for GM told jurors the accident was caused by Stevens’ reckless speeding on a rain-slick road.
GM has acknowledged selling cars with ignition switches so sensitive that slight jolts could stop the engine, lock the steering, or cut power to brakes or air bags.
Earlier this month, a Texas judge dismissed a lawsuit against GM from a woman who blamed a 2012 auto crash on a faulty ignition switch of a type that prompted the company to recall 2.6m vehicles.
Stevens, who was 19 at the time, had been driving westbound on a road northeast of Houston near the town of New Caney when his vehicle began to act erratically and he was unable to control it, according to his attorneys. GM had argued that the plaintiff’s case had no expert testimony to support allegations the defective switch caused her 2007 Chevrolet Cobalt to veer out of control and strike a concrete barrier before being hit by a pickup truck.
“It’s obviously very disappointing”, Davis said after the verdict. “The accident had nothing to do with the ignition switch”. The recall, which covers 1.4 million vehicles dating to the 1997 model year, is needed because repairs from the first two didn’t work.
GM resolved some claims for injuries and deaths blamed on the switch through an out-of-court program administered by Washington lawyer Kenneth Feinberg.
This is the third case related to the defective ignition switches that the automaker has won this year. GM’s fund rejected more than 90 percent of the 4,343 claims it received, according to figures the company released in December.
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These cases have been part of a series of bellwether trials that are testing the legal boundaries of hundreds of claims remaining against GM.
