Chrysler and General Motors conveniently eschewed existing product liability litigation during this time period, many of the cases involving plaintiffs whom wer

Chrysler and General Motors conveniently eschewed existing product liability litigation during this time period, many of the cases involving plaintiffs whom were seriously injured for life.[1] GM also tried and failed to shed all future product liability claims involving vehicles manufactured prior to the 2009 restructuring.[2] Product liability cases in progress at the time were effectively wiped out; the entity being litigated against ("Old GM") suddenly became an empty shell ("Motors Liquidation Company"), and most claims were settled for pennies on the dollar. Plaintiffs who wished to proceed with litigation against MLC despite this would have had their cases moved from their current jurisdiction (overwhelmingly state court) into the same jurisdiction as the bankruptcy proceedings (federal district court in New York). This made proceeding with litigation essentially futile: the introduction of prohibitive travel expenses, transition to the wildly different procedural and evidentiary standards of federal court, and an award sum (if any) a fraction of the original claim amount. The best and perhaps most ironic part, however, was that the plaintiffs who did proceed would have the comfort of knowing that the defense attorneys assigned to destroy what remained of them and their product liability tort would be directly financed by the U.S. Department of the Treasury. If anyone wants further reading, I recommend Steve Jakubowski's blog posts on the subject. They mostly chronicle his arguments before the bankruptcy court concerning successorship liability issues at the time, but he also does a really good job of putting a human face on the matter.[3] 1. http://money.cnn.com/2009/06/15/news/companies/auto_bankruptcy_plaintiffs/ http://money.cnn.com/2009/06/15/news/companies/auto_bankrupt... 2. http://www.marketwatch.com/story/gm-to-cover-future-liability-claims-reports http://www.marketwatch.com/story/gm-to-cover-future-liabilit... 3. http://www.bankruptcylitigationblog.com/archives/bankruptcy-in-the-news-voyage-of-the-damned-the-gm-tort-claimants-opening-appellate-brief-brother-can-you-spare-a-quarter.html http://www.bankruptcylitigationblog.com/archives/bankruptcy-...