The US Supreme Court has turned down GM's request to review the second circuit's ruling striking down the bankruptcy shield for the car company as it relates to hundreds of victims of the ignition switch defect in GM vehicles.
The second circuit had determined that GM's bankruptcy, without notifying its customers whose vehicle had the defective ignition switch, violated those customers' due process rights.
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Robert Hilliard, lead counsel for the victims killed and injured by GM's defective ignition switch said in a statement: "Hundreds of death and injury cases have been frozen in place for years as GM wrongly tried to hide behind a fake bankruptcy. Even when GM told the world it was owning up to its mistakes and doing right by those they killed and injured, they were still ordering their lawyers to spare no expense or legal manoeuvre to try and stop these victims from having their day in court.
"Now, GM can hide no more. These cases are factually some of the most tragic stories, and also some of the strongest in terms of clear liability of GM's intentional misconduct. Each case will soon be sent back to its local venue and each one will be tried to a verdict.
"As the federal MDL bellwether process involving these types of vehicles is completed, the entirety of the docket of cases that were trapped by GM's bankruptcy are able to be tried in the victim's home state. I am hopeful that long overdue justice will finally be achieved for these remaining victims."
