The writer, a Los Angeles freelancer and former Detroit News business reporter, writes a blog, Starkman Approved.
By Eric Starkman
GM CEO Mary Barra believes Silicon Valley has the best tech talent, but she’s fast learning that some of America’s best lawyers are located within easy walking distance of the automaker’s supposed Detroit headquarters.
Attorney Powell Miller (Photo credit: Emma Burcursel)
A federal judge has appointed Detroit-based Miller Law Firm to lead the charge of some dozen class action lawsuits alleging that GM knowingly sold premium trucks and SUVs for years it knew were defective. Damning allegations contained in the lawsuits have been amplified in YouTube videos by independent gearhead journalists and angry customers outraged they paid $100,000 or more for vehicles whose engines were at risk of failing even before their first oil change.
“Having considered the competing motions to appoint interim lead counsel, the Court is persuaded that the Miller Slate is best able to represent the interests of the putative class,” Detroit U.S. District Judge Shalina Kumar wrote in a November 13 decision.
Handled Other Defect Cases
“The Miller Slate has undertaken a substantial investigation of the alleged claims and has identified and retained experts to support their case. In addition, the Miller Slate served as lead, co-lead, or committee member counsel in at least 11 automotive defect cases over the last five years.”
The Miller Law Firm, whose office is about a half mile from Hudson’s Tower where GM occupies four floors, should have a familiar ring to Barra. GM last year paid $50 million to settle a Miller lawsuit alleging the automaker sold trucks with defective fuel injection pumps that caused engine failure and contaminated the fuel system with metal shavings.
Miller Law was also among the firms that filed blistering privacy-violation lawsuits against GM after The New York Times revealed the automaker was collecting driving data on unsuspecting customers and selling it to insurance brokers — a practice that, for some drivers, resulted in higher premiums. Several state attorneys general have also filed suit, including Texas AG Ken Paxton, who is seeking more than $1 billion in damages.
Miller’s latest lawsuit is an even bigger whopper. The firm and others allege that GM knew as far back as 2019 that its 6.2-liter EcoTec3 V8 was defective — and still installed it in its most profitable trucks and SUVs. GM in April finally issued a global recall of more than 721,000 vehicles equipped with the engine.
GM CEO Mary Barra (GM photo)
The recall involved some of GM’s most profitable vehicles, including these 2021–2024 models: Cadillac Escalade and Escalade ESV; Chevy Silverado 1500, Suburban, and Tahoe; and GMC Sierra 1500, Yukon, and Yukon XL. Vehicles equipped with the 6.2-liter V-8 engine can experience engine damage that could lead to a loss of power or even complete engine failure, even when they are practically new.
“Anytime you have a vehicle that loses the ability to move on an active roadway ― that’s a big crash risk,” Michael Brooks, executive director of the Center for Auto Safety, told the Detroit Free Press. “Stalling, or loss of automotive power, as NHTSA refers to it, is one of the most important defects the agency looks into.”
GM’s recall came only after NHTSA opened an investigation, and the regulator recently disclosed it has expanded the scope of its examination. GM has admitted it was aware of 28,102 complaints or incidents potentially tied to the failure, including 12 crashes and 42 engine fires.
Despite the formidable evidence, GM spokesman Bill Grotz told the Detroit Free Press: “The safety and satisfaction of our customers are the highest priorities for the entire GM team.”
While the corporate media mostly functions as an arm of GM’s PR department, independent journalists view GM’s allegedly defective engines as a major story and a growing stain on the automaker’s reputation.
Legend Bob Lutz
Automotive legend Bob Lutz, who held senior executive positions at GM, Ford, and Chrysler, famously said that “If the engine sounds cheap, feels cheap, or fails early, you’ve lost the customer forever.” Throughout his career, Lutz railed about “bean counters” exerting too much control over engineering and design to the detriment of quality and reliability — a critique that feels prophetic today.
Allegations that GM under Mary Barra’s leadership knowingly sold vehicles with defective engines are especially alarming given her previous testimony before Congress. Upon assuming command in 2014, Barra ordered sweeping recalls of more than 2.6 million vehicles equipped with faulty ignition switches that could shut off the engine while in motion and prevent air bags from deploying. The defect was linked to more than 100 deaths and hundreds of injuries.
Ignition Problems
GM engineers were alleged to have known about the ignition switch problem for years. When a congressional report noted that GM considered a fix back in 2004 but didn’t implement it due to “lead time required, cost and effectiveness,” Barra told lawmakers she found the statement “very disturbing” and called it “unacceptable. That is not how we do business in today’s GM.”
“It’s not acceptable to put a cost on a safety issue,” she later added under questioning.
Last year, GM’s driverless-taxi subsidiary Cruise got off with a paltry $500,000 fine to resolve a criminal charge alleging the company provided a false record to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) “with the intent to impede, obstruct, or influence” the agency’s investigation into a crash involving one of Cruise’s autonomous vehicles.
Barra served as chair of Cruise’s board. Given that she repeatedly told Wall Street the business would generate $50 billion in revenue by 2030, it stands to reason she closely monitored its progress and was familiar with the company’s culture.
The Miller Law Firm was founded in 1996 by E. Powell Miller, who has been named one of Michigan’s Top 10 lawyers for 17 consecutive years and one of America’s best lawyers every year since 2005. Fortune 500 and other major companies have repeatedly hired him to try their biggest cases across the country — from New York and California to Florida, Texas, and Illinois.
Miller has secured roughly $10 billion in settlements and has prevailed at virtually every trial he’s argued — an almost unheard-of record in high-stakes litigation. His firm handled seven of the eight largest class action and mass-tort settlements in Michigan in 2023, including three involving privacy violations and one involving a data breach.
For all of Barra’s talk about transforming GM into a Silicon Valley–grade technology company, the automaker can’t even build V8 engines that survive their warranty. As reported by former Free Press reporter Phoebe Wall Howard in her Substack newsletter, GM cited ongoing litigation among the many challenges requiring Barra’s attention in an SEC filing last December.
“We are subject to legal proceedings in the U.S. and elsewhere involving various issues, including product liability lawsuits, warranty litigation, class action litigations alleging product defects, emissions litigation, privacy matters, stockholder litigation, labor and employment litigation, and claims and actions arising from restructurings and divestitures of operations and assets.
“In addition, we are subject to various governmental proceedings and investigations. A negative outcome in one or more of these proceedings could result in the imposition of damages, including punitive damages, fines, reputational harm, civil lawsuits and criminal penalties, interruptions of business, modification of business practices, equitable remedies and other sanctions against us or our personnel, as well as legal and other costs, all of which may be significant.”
Notably, Barra recently unloaded more than 40 percent of her GM stock — and, true to form, Wall Street and the corporate media treated it as a non-event.
Starkman can be reached at eric@starkmanapproved.com Anonymity assured and protected.
