The Justice System Exposes Corporate Safety Shenanigans Again

What we would know about the defective General Motors’ (GM) defective ignition switch that has resulted in the injuries and deaths of innocent people without the civil Justice system?  NOTHING!   When a corporation like GM makes a dangerous product that results in people being killed or injured, should the defects or deaths and injuries be kept secret?  OF COURSE NOT!

GM engineers debated whether to fix the ignition switches as early as 2005. The idea was nixed because it would have added almost a dollar to the cost of each vehicle.  Instead, GM hid the dangerous defect.
How many lives could have been saved if GM didn’t have the option to sweep the fatal flaw under the rug?

So far, GM’s faulty ignition switches have been implicated in the deaths of 13 people since as far back as 2005. But the public is only now learning about it.  It seems the product safety disasters keep happening.  We have dealt with corporate cover-ups of defective products long enough.  The average consumer would not know about most of these but for lawyers and their experts who were hired to investigate otherwise inexplicable disasters.

Toyota had its unintended acceleration defect that maimed and killed unwary consumers.  How about Dalkon Shield, asbestos, tobacco, defective heart defibrillators, Vioxx, and the Ford Pinto gas tanks?  The list could go on and on.    The civil justice system, as maligned as pundits try to make it, has been there for the people.  With GM, like the other examples above, the corporate giants knew their products would cause harm.  Yet, they did nothing- until caught.  Mary Barra’s appearance before Congress certainly did nothing to indicate GM is going to change its ways.

Maybe we would have learned earlier about defective products if the insurance companies and corporations did not insist on confidentiality agreements in settlements.  Or if they would agree in settlements to immediately address the defect.  Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.), has introduced The Sunshine in Litigation Act (H.R. 4361), in Congress.  The bill would encourage transparency of court documents when public health and safety are at risk.  Call you r Congressman and Senator to get him or her behind this important legislation.