Plaintiff Drops Out of GM Ignition Trial – What's Up With That?

Several years ago, General Motors was accused of selling vehicles with defective ignition switches. It didn’t take long for lawsuits to be filed and consolidated into a multidistrict litigation – and, on January 11th of this year, the first trial began. The goal of this trial was to allow all parties involved to test their arguments and move the entirety of the MDL toward a final resolution. In legal terms, this is what is known as a bellwether trial.

But, the trial itself – and any impact it would have had on putting an end to the litigation – was short lived, as the case met its untimely end on Friday. Moments before the trial was set to begin, lead plaintiff Robert Scheuer withdrew his claims. Virtually unprecedented, the first bellwether case died on the spot. You, and many others, may be wondering, “What in the world happened?” Well…

Here’s What Happened

The plaintiff originally claimed that General Motors manufactured and sold the ignition switch responsible for the injuries sustained in his May 2014 car crash. He maintained that the defect stopped his airbag from deploying and that the resulting physical and mental damage prevented him from returning to work as a United States Postal Service mailman. Because he could not return to work, Scheuer went on to say, he could not take out a Thrift Savings Plan loan and therefore could not afford payments on his new house, resulting in the eviction of himself and his family. Admittedly, it sounds like a tough go, but here’s where it gets interesting.

On the evening of January 11^th, the day the trial started, GM received a phone call from a man claiming to have game-changing information regarding the case. This man was Robert Kleven, the real estate agent who had helped Scheuer find his new home. What he had to say to GM was indeed game-changing.

According to Kleven, Scheuer had tried to purchase the home within a few weeks of his accident. (Scheuer had previously testified that he was essentially immobile during this time.) But it doesn’t end there – apparently, Scheuer had sent over photos of a $441,000 check stub from his Thrift Savings Plan (the same one he told the court he wasn’t eligible for) as a way to show that he could afford the payment on his new house. And yet, the house payment never came, according to Kleven, leading the court to suspect that the check stub was less than legitimate.

This information was introduced last minute, so it caught everyone by surprise – including the plaintiff himself – when it was brought up in the courtroom. When GM questioned him about the check stub and the missing house payment, his story began to unravel. He began to claim that the medication he was on impaired his memory during the three months in question – an ailment that had no bearing on the case prior to this revelation.

The judge presiding over the trial encouraged Scheuer to withdraw his case. So that’s exactly how it went down, Scheuer withdrew his suit, dropping his claim that GM’s ignition switch caused him to lose his home. And just like that, the first bellwether trial in the GM ignition switch litigation met its abrupt end.

Where Does that Leave the Rest of the MDL?

The shenanigans of the first trial left a couple pointed questions in the minds of everyone involved. Was all the work done for the case a huge waste of time? How will this influence the cases going forward?

Let’s look at these one at a time. First of all, yes, the trial did end up being a waste of both time and resources. The entire point of a bellwether trial is to save time by allowing a handful of trials to serve as “test runs” with the hope of putting an end to the litigation as a whole. The results from this case, being far from typical (hopefully) compared to the other cases involved, can by no means be representative of the MDL. In addition, nothing was decided upon when it comes to the crux of the matter. We still haven’t explored the real question regarding the existence of a defect in GM’s ignition switches. That issue will have to wait until the next trial, which is scheduled to take place in March.

So, what influence will this case have as the litigation moves forward? Well, it might not actually prove to have any impact on future rulings. Sure, it won’t be much help for plaintiffs’ credibility when they continue accusing GM of deceptive business practices, but it will encourage attorneys to make sure their cases are solid.

And then there’s GM. After the trial was dismissed, the motor company reportedly said that the results of the trial show that the ignition switch didn’t have anything to do with Scheuer’s accident. But is that really true? It might be tempting to say that since GM “won” (it’s hard to say that anybody won after this case) the first trial, it should be smooth sailing from here. If anything, it only proves that Scheuer’s reason for eviction was falsified. Not that he didn’t get in an accident or what could have caused such an accident.

At most, this trial was a setback. We still need answers because this litigation voices legitimate concerns about the safety of GM’s vehicles. Proceedings have been postponed for the moment, but answers should still be found in the coming months.