With the Jan. 31 deadline for filing a compensation claim right around the corner, the GM ignition switch recall program to compensate victims has risen, making the total claims for injuries and deaths to date a total of 2,710.

The latest tally of GM ignition switch defect recall claims received stands at 2,710, including 303 wrongful death claims and 202 severe Category One injury claims resulting in quadriplegia, paraplegia, double amputation, permanent brain damage or pervasive burns.

The attorney who was hired by GM to compensate victims, and his staff have an organized procedure on how they deal with the GM ignition switch defect claims submitted to the compensation fund. To date, there have been 112 claims determined eligible, including 45 death claims, as well as seven Category One injury claims and 60 Category Two injury claims. More than 700 cases are still under review.

The amount of compensation has not been capped but GM has estimated that compensating all victims of the defective ignition switch could cost the automaker anywhere from $400 to $600 million.

GM Recall

In February 2014, General Motors recalled 1.6 million vehicles because of an ignition switch defect that has been linked to the deaths of 45 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 recall targeted an ignition switch defect in nearly 6 million GM cars that caused the cars’ engines and electrical systems to shut off, and disable the air bags.

For a decade, GM and government safety regulators reportedly failed to address this defect and GM later admitted to knowing of the problem since 2004. It has been reported that GM could have fixed the defective switch for as little as 57 cents per vehicle and the automaker was eventually fined $35 million by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).

In March 2014, a General Motors class action lawsuit was filed alleging GM excluded vehicles from the recall and put consumers at risk.

GM Lawsuits

Since June, all claims filed against General Motors throughout the federal court system have been consolidated for pretrial proceedings in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, as part of a multidistrict litigation, or MDL.

The GM lawsuits are centralized before U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman to reduce duplicative discovery into common issues, avoid conflicting pretrial rulings and to serve the convenience of the parties, witnesses and the courts.

Judge Furman has also set a bellwether process for the preparation of some of the GM recall injury class action lawsuits with the first GM recall lawsuit expected to go before a federal jury in January 2016.