This case occurred in Lauderdale County, Alabama. Our client was driving her 2006 Chevrolet Cobalt home after delivering cupcakes to her daughter’s school. While driving the car, the ignition switch failed resulting in a complete loss of power. Our client’s car became uncontrollable and collided with an 18 wheeler. Tragically, our client lost her life.
At the time of the wreck, General Motors the manufacturer of the Chevrolet Cobalt, knew that the ignition switch was defective and allowed the key to unintentionally slip from the “run” to “off” position while the car was being driven. The ignition switch defect would cause the sudden loss of engine power, braking and steering. GM knew about the ignition switch problem as early as 2001 but rejected several design changes and solutions that were recommended by its own engineers because of the cost and time it would take to make the changes.
Upon being contacted by our client’s family and realizing that time was of the essence, we immediately filed suit and began investigating the crash. Although the damage to our client’s car was severe, we were able to determine through the use of crash experts that the ignition switch had indeed failed causing the wreck. In addition, due to having been able to begin our investigation so close to the time of the wreck, we found that another tractor trailer truck driving behind our client’s car had a dashcam which clearly showed the sudden loss of steering and loss of control of our client’s car.