119 Deaths Attributed to GM Faulty Ignition Scandal
General Motors’ compensation fund administrator Kenneth Feinberg has now approved 119 fatalities after the automaker’s defective ignition switches caused their vehicles to crash. GM executives knew about the problems with the switches since 2003, which cause the vehicle’s key system to slip out of the “on” position and power down the entire car, but not until a decade later did the automaker recall 2.6 million affected vehicles. Thousands of injury and death claims were filed against GM before the March 31, 2015 deadline, and 81 are still under review.