Reference no: EM133349774

Question: What did we learn about General Motors had to recall more than 2.5 million vehicles from 2004 to 2014, 124 deaths were reported because of the faulty switches that would force the cars to stall. GM agreed to pay $120 million to settle more claims that the deadly ignition switch defect caused economic harm. GM admitted to the switches being faulty and that it caused all the safety features to get disabled including airbags. The product liability messed with the power steering and then caused the airbags to not even deploy when they crashed. There was also over 300 injuries caused from this. GM covered this up for 13 years though before finally admitting to it when they got exposed for secretly redesigning the switches without changing the actual part number. The older, defective switches were manufactured with torque thresholds that were low enough that the key could slip out of the run position, thereby disabling the engine, power assists, and safety features that included airbags. This may not be the final lawsuit. As of March 16, the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multi-District Litigation, which consolidates identical cases around the country, listed 444 cases pending against GM for the ignition-switch defect(Atiyeh,2020).

Time after time we see these big companies try and maneuver the system without actually taking responsibility for their actions until they are absolutely forced to. It seemed like GM had no intentions of coming forward if not for getting exposed by a small law firm about the changing of parts. They were responsible for deaths and injuries but kept it a secret for over a decade, that is unethical in so many ways. They always look at from a money perspective, if they come forward they are going to lose millions and millions so that scares them off. But no matter how long they wait, they are still responsible for the mistakes they made. Being shady and keeping it a secret like that hurts the brand name and customer relations even more, customers might have trouble trusting them ever again.