Nearly four months after General Motors’ victim compensation fund stopped accepting death and injury claims related to its massive ignition switch issue, the number of people killed because of the long-ignored defect continues to climb, now officially reaching triple-digits.
According to MLive.com, the compensation fund has thus far approved 100 death claims, up from 97 claims last week.
The three-digit number is more than seven times as many victims as the car company originally acknowledged. For months after the ignition switch issue was finally made public, the automaker hesitated to concede that more than 13 deaths were related to the defect.
That figure continuously came under fire from critics who said it only accounted for front seat passengers and cars involved in head-on crashes.
In addition to the 100 approved death claims, compensation fund director Ken Feinberg says that 12 catastrophic injury claims, along with 172 less-serious injury claims, have been deemed eligible for compensation.
A claimant isn’t required to accept an offer from the compensation fund, but if an offer is accepted, that claimant gives up their right to pursue any further related legal action.
While the fund stopped accepting claim applications on January 30, the latest report from Feinberg shows that some 626 claims remain under investigation and 330 claims remain submitted without documentation.
The fund, which GM estimates could cost nearly $400 million, includes other passengers in the vehicles, people in other vehicles and pedestrians injured or killed in the accidents.
Approved death claims related to GM ignition switch recall rise to 100 [MLive]
by Ashlee Kieler via Consumerist
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