GM Settles Wrongful Death Case for Father of Five Killed by Defective Ignition Switch

In November 2013, James Yingling III was driving to work near his Pennsylvania home when his Saturn Ion abruptly lost power steering, power brakes, and airbag functionality. Unable to control the vehicle, Yingling ran off the road into a culvert about two miles from his house. He spent 17 days in a coma before dying of his injuries. He was 35 years old and left behind a wife, Nadia, and five children.

The crash traced back to a defective ignition switch that GM had known about since at least 2005, a fact the company concealed from federal regulators from 2012 through 2014. Testing of the switch in the Yingling vehicle showed it was 'well below the company's performance specifications' and that the car was 'unreasonably dangerous.' GM's own engineers had documented the failure mode years before Yingling's death.

Victor Pribanic of Pribanic and Pribanic represented the Yingling family in the federal multidistrict litigation consolidated before U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman in Manhattan, captioned In re General Motors LLC Ignition Switch Litigation, 14-MD-2543. The Yingling case was designated the third of six bellwether trials chosen to test how juries would respond to the core liability facts across the broader MDL.

Judge Furman set the trial for May 2016. As the date approached, pretrial filings detailed what jurors would hear: testimony from Nadia Yingling and the couple's eldest son, along with expert analysis of the switch failure. On April 8, 2016, GM and the Yingling family reached a confidential settlement. The agreement was disclosed to the court by letter on April 11, 2016, canceling the trial days before it was scheduled to begin.

The terms were not made public. The settlement resolved a case that had been closely watched by plaintiffs and defendants across hundreds of other pending GM ignition switch claims, given its status as the third bellwether in a litigation that would ultimately touch millions of vehicles and years of corporate concealment.