In February, General Motors recalled 1.6 million vehicles because of an ignition switch defect that has been linked to the deaths of 13 people.

The GM recall includes the 2005-2010 Chevrolet Cobalt, 2007-2010 Pontiac G5, 2003-2007 Saturn Ion, 2006-2011 Chevrolet HHR, 2006-2010 Pontiac Solstice and 2007-2010 Saturn Sky vehicles.

The GM recall targeted a flaw that allowed an ignition switch to move out of the “run” position — and was found to cause air bags to fail to deploy during a crash.

It was later announced GM actually knew of the problem since 2004 and in March, a GM class action lawsuit was filed alleging General Motors excluded some vehicles from the GM recall and put consumers at risk.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) investigated the automaker and subsequently fined General Motors $35 million, stating that GM had several opportunities to solve the ignition switch problem but failed to act.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says the fine is “the single highest civil penalty amount ever paid as a result of a NHTSA investigation of violations stemming from a recall.”

Harsh Criticism For NHTSA Handling of GM Recall

Congress is now investigating whether GM broke any laws while waiting so long to inform the public and is investigating why the NHTSA didn’t take action years ago after receiving complaints of the ignition switch defect in many GM vehicles.

A summary of the government’s Fatal Analysis Reporting System (FARS) found over 300 fatalities in some of the GM cars that were recalled for ignition switch defects, prompting consumers and the government to question why the NHTSA did not conduct an investigation years ago.

NHTSA said it didn’t force GM to conduct the recall sooner because GM hadn’t provided timely information about the connection between defective ignition switches and failing air bags.

These facts have angered individual consumers and consumer groups prompting the Senate Commerce Committee’s consumer protection subcommittee to examine the responses of NHTSA to the discovery of faulty ignition switches.

GM Lawsuits

The number of General Motors vehicles recalled has increased significantly since the automaker’s first GM recall in February involving defective ignition switches. In response to the growing number of GM lawsuits over ignition switch problems, a request has been filed to centralize all federal litigation before one judge for coordinated pretrial proceedings.

Multidistrict litigation (MDL), or mass tort, is a kind of coordinated group of similar lawsuits. In some ways, they are similar to class action lawsuits, in that a number of plaintiffs allege that they have suffered similar harm at the hands of the same defendant.

The main difference is that class action lawsuits start out as group lawsuits, while MDLs start out as an individual lawsuits, which are later coordinated into an MDL. In MDLs, cases retain a degree of autonomy, and plaintiffs have their own lawyers.

Both MDLs and class action lawsuits are designed to help streamline the legal system by combining tens, hundreds, or even thousands, of individual lawsuits into a single coordinated legal action.