General Motors will be forced to pay $102.6 million to owners of trucks and SUVs manufactured between 2011 and 2014, following the verdict in a class action lawsuit in California.
The suit was launched by GM owners in California, Idaho, and North Carolina, who argued that the automaker knowingly sold vehicles with defective piston rings, according to Law.com. These, the case claimed, caused excessive oil consumption and resulted in premature breakdowns in the Generation IV Vortec 5300 LC9 engine, per Street Insider.
“We are pleased that the jury understood the issue in detail and rendered a verdict in favor of the class members, who need relief for this defective engine,” Atlanta plaintiffs lawyer Clay Barnett III said in a statement. “The evidence was clear that GM engineers knew about this defect in this model engine as far back as 2009, but remained silent about the defect because of the cost associated with curing the problem.”
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GM claimed, in its trial brief, that less than three percent of the vehicles in question needed repairs for oil consumption and alleged that there was no piston ring defect common among class members.
The plaintiffs, meanwhile, argued that consumers filed numerous complaints and warranty claims, but were told to use less effective repairs to fix the problem in order to help the company save money. Now, in a rare decision, each of the 38,000 members of this class have been awarded $2,700.
“Very few class action cases ever go to trial, let alone to verdict,” said Adam Levitt, who participated in the trial, which focused on consumer fraud and breach of warranty claims. “This one did, and we did it.”
Unfortunately for GM, there may be more to come, as reports suggest that there are more classes of consumers preparing for future trials related to the same defect.
