The Georgia attorney whose wrongful death suit against General Motors Co. helped trigger the recall of 2.59 million cars is seeking to revive that case, alleging that the automaker fraudulently withheld information ahead of a settlement, Bloomberg News reported today. Lance Cooper’s latest legal maneuver may help generate more information about what GM knew — and to what strata of management that knowledge traveled — about faulty ignition switches the company has linked to at least 13 deaths in the past decade. Cooper filed a new complaint yesterday in Georgia state court in Marietta, asking a judge to reopen the matter, which GM settled in September with his clients, the parents of 29-year-old Brooke Melton. Melton died in 2010 when her 2005 Chevy Cobalt lost power in a crash linked to the defective switch. The filing by Cooper comes after another attorney pursuing injury and death claims stemming from the defective switches said on May 2 that he had held settlement talks with Kenneth Feinberg, the lawyer hired by GM to advise on its recall. While GM has agreed to address accident and death claims, it says court orders in the company’s 2009 bankruptcy absolved it of responsibility for financial damages.
