The hopes of people involved in hundreds of lawsuits against General Motors Co. over a defective ignition switch were dealt a setback Thursday when a federal judge advised a group of lawyers to drop the first such suit amid revelations about alleged fraud involving the plaintiff, the Wall Street Journal reported today. U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman said the case of Robert Scheuer, a mail carrier who alleges a faulty ignition switch disabled his air bag in a 2014 crash, was “worthless as a settlement tool,” and that the lawyers should “think about whether it’s worth continuing on.” Scheuer’s lawsuit is the first of six so-called bellwether cases set for trial this year. Plaintiffs lawyers representing alleged victims had hoped to use the cases to negotiate a broader settlement with GM. The automaker recalled 2.6 million cars because of the ignition-switch defect, paid out billions in settlements and admitted that it failed to disclose the defect to regulators and misled consumers about the safety problem.
