General Motors gets 125 death compensation claims relating to car defective ignition switches.
Kenneth Feinberg, the lawyer GM hired to determine the people who are valid to receive monetary compensations.
"Ken Feinberg and his team will independently determine the final number of eligible individuals. What is most important is that we are doing the right thing for those who lost loved ones and for those who suffered physical injury," Dave Roman, spokesman for GM stated.
GM was verifying whether the ultimate cause of the accidents were the faulty switch defects, according to Feinberg on Bloomberg Television on Monday.
"Our standard, as you know, is much more liberal. It's easier to apply. It's a legal standard, was the ignition switch the proximate cause, a substantial likelihood as the cause of the accident," Feinberg stated.
The GM lawyer, however, did not reveal how much GM would shell out for these cases, though the car-manufacturing giant revealed in July that it was allocating $400 million to fund the victim's claims.
A total of 445 claims have been filed against the Detroit-based car maker.
The claims include 58 involving serious injury and 262 involving hospitalization.
19 families will receive settlements while the remaining is still being studied.
GM has reported only 13 deaths linked to their defective car switches, which could unintentionally be turned off when bumped by the passenger, subsequently turning the engine off and deactivating the air bags.
The claims reportedly include drivers, occupants of other vehicles and pedestrians who were hurt by a GM car with a defective ignition switch.
An internal investigation revealed that the company failed to carry out solutions for increasing complaints from consumers, dealers, and others about unusual crashes ni the Cobalt and Ion.
The company allegedly replaced the defective ignition switches without a prior notice given to the public.
As of the investigation, GM recalled its units of about 2.6 million cars including the Chevrolet Cobalt and Saturn Ion since February.
