Lawyers Say GM Covered Up Ignition-Switch Defect

New documents show General Motors Co. executive deliberately hid evidence of defective ignition switches for years before the company recalled 2.6 million of the devices last year, plaintiffs' attorneys claim.

"It was a cover-up," declares lawyer Lance Cooper. He and associate Jere Beasley handled the wrongful death lawsuit by the parents of Brooke Melton a daughter who died in a crash in 2010 that sparked the recall.

The lawyers also handled a just-settled second lawsuit by the Meltons. GM was ordered by a Georgia judge last September to produce the additional records. Cooper and Beasley declined to reveal any of the sealed evidence. But they insist it contradicts an internal probe commissioned by GM last year.

The so-called Valukas report concluded GM was guilty of incompetence and neglect. But it found no evidence of a deliberate attempt to hide the defect, which could abruptly switch off the engine along with the car's power steering, power brakes and airbags.

Cooper vows to launch a new round of depositions in May of current and past GM employees and high-level executives.

Those results, coupled with the new documents, appear likely to affect the outcome of a group of similar death and injury lawsuits that were consolidated last year before a federal judge in New York City. The first of those cases is scheduled to begin in January.