A judge overseeing General Motors ignition switch multidistrict litigation, or MDL, will start selecting bellwether cases for trials that will begin in 2016.

U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman, who is presiding over the GM ignition switch MDL, issued an outline on Nov. 19.

Bellwether trials are used to determine how a jury might respond to evidence and which evidence should be used throughout other GM ignition switch lawsuits. Bellwether trials usually contain a small handful of cases that are representative of the most common complaints throughout the MDL. 

Furman wrote in the order, “the Court expects the parties to exercise good faith in selecting cases for potential inclusion in the Initial Discovery Pool, and not to select cases presenting unique or idiosyncratic facts.”

The outcome of bellwether trials are not binding for other cases, but they may be influential in settlement negotiations.

GM Ignition Switch Bellwether Trials

For the GM ignition switch MDL, bellwether trials will only involve a few cases concerning personal injury or wrongful death claims after July 10, 2009, after the GM bankruptcy was over.

Eighteen claims will be a part of the initial discovery pool. The 18 GM lawsuits will go through the discovery process in preparation for the bellwether trials scheduled for January 2016. Each party has until Feb. 17, 2015 to identify nine GM ignition switch lawsuits to include, for a total of 18 GM lawsuits.

GM ignition switch lawsuits must be filed before the end of the year in order to be included. Short-form fact sheets must be completed by Jan. 16, 2015.

The GM ignition switch bellwether program is not an option for plaintiffs who decided to take compensation from the GM recall settlement fund established in August.

Plaintiffs have until Jan. 31, 2015 to decide if they want to receive compensation from the settlement fund. Initially, the deadline was Dec. 31, but GM attorneys suggested that this may not be sufficient time for all parties involved, including families of individuals who died as the result of the GM ignition switch failure, to become aware of the situation.

GM Ignition Switch MDL

GM ignition switch lawsuits were consolidated into a MDL in June in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. A MDL is used for numerous (sometimes thousands) of lawsuits against the same defendant. In this case, plaintiffs are individuals who have allegedly experienced injuries, wrongful death, or economic setbacks due to the GM ignition switch.

The flaw in the GM ignition switch caused the key to move into the “accessory” or “off” position. This made the engine turn off and caused the airbags to fail to deploy in a crash. Several severe injuries and deaths have been linked to the GM ignition switch failure.

GM issued a recall of thousands if not millions of vehicles, but the GM ignition switch class action lawsuit claims that GM was aware of the ignition switch flaw before the recall. One report suggests that GM was aware of the defect as early as 2011.

Various models of Chevrolet, Pontiac, Saturn, Buick, Cadillac, and Oldsmobile have been involved in the ignition switch recall that began in February and listed in GM lawsuits.

The GM ignition switch MDL includes claims from across the country that GM not only caused severe injury, death, and loss of vehicular value, but failed to warn against possible ignition switch failure.