Editorial: GM simply writes a 900 million dollar check

[jeaniebueller]

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www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2015/09/17/gm-justice-settlement-cars-defective-editorials-debates/32569791/

The $900 million General Motors agreed on Thursday to pay the government for concealing a deadly ignition switch from regulators is a lot of money — nearly one-third of GM's earnings last year — though hardly an existential threat to the company. Indeed, GM stock was up 11 cents to $31.31 a share on the news.

But the truly disturbing part of the announcement was that not a single individual has been criminally charged for concealing the defect: a faulty ignition switch that allowed cars to suddenly stall or prevented air bags from deploying. Defective vehicles remained on the road even as cars crashed, lawyers secretly settled complaints with victims' families, and more than 120 people were killed.

Real people, not some faceless “company,” made the fateful decisions not to fix a switch that failed to perform properly even before it went into production in 2002; not to do more once complaints of stalls and shutoffs came in; not to inform regulators of the defect when occupants began dying in crashes; and not to stop selling cars and misleading the public about their safety.

None — including engineers, lawyers and executives — has been called to account before the law.

Laura Christian, whose 16-year-old daughter was one of GM's earliest victims, in 2005, described why the system needs to change. “We buried our loved ones because GM buried a deadly defect. And yet today, all GM has to do is write another check to escape.”

Thursday's disappointing conclusion after months of federal investigation is simply par for the course. In the past decade, corporations have gotten away with all manner of fraud, self-dealing, negligent manufacturing and market manipulation. The subprime mortgage industry nearly brought down the U.S. economy and ruined untold number of lives. But to the extent there was punishment at all after these acts, it usually involved a company writing a check, as if these firms ran on automatic pilot.

Individuals are deterred from wrongdoing by the prospect of going to jail, much more so than by the prospect of seeing the corporate treasurer pay money to the government.

In GM's case, federal prosecutors in New York can point to two criminal charges against General Motors, the company, for concealing a deadly defect and for wire fraud. But even here, GM got off easy. The charges are deferred and will be dismissed in three years if GM fixes its recall process under an appointed federal monitor. Prosecutors also left the door open to charging individuals in the future, but nobody should hold their breath. It's hard to see what more investigating could turn up at this stage.

If criminal laws are inadequate to handle the types of fraud or negligence committed by people running companies, it’s time to carefully re-examine those laws.

For auto safety, there’s an easy fix. Under laws that cover many consumer products, individuals at companies can be charged criminally when they willfully fail to report unsafe products to regulators. Auto safety laws make it far more difficult to prosecute company executives for similar acts. Three Democratic senators — Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, Ed Markey of Massachusetts and Bill Nelson of Florida — have been pushing a measure that would plug this hole, making it easier to hold auto executives responsible when safety laws are willfully flouted. Despite the uproar over hidden defects in Toyota vehicles a few years ago and the recent GM fiasco, the measure has failed to gain traction in Congress. The Senate, which is moving an auto safety measure this fall, should embrace it.

The logic is pretty simple.

If an individual who kills someone, even unintentionally, through negligent acts with a car can be charged with manslaughter, individuals at a company that kills scores of people with a car they know is unsafe ought to face criminal prosecution, too.

USA TODAY's editorial opinions are decided by its Editorial Board, separate from the news staff. Most editorials are coupled with an opposing view — a unique USA TODAY feature.

[ttt]

Sept 21, 2015 9:20:58 GMT -5 jeaniebueller said:

Real people, not some faceless “company,” made the fateful decisions not to fix a switch that failed to perform properly even before it went into production in 2002; not to do more once complaints of stalls and shutoffs came in; not to inform regulators of the defect when occupants began dying in crashes; and not to stop selling cars and misleading the public about their safety.

This is it, right here. There are actual human beings who made these decisions, and they need to be held responsible for their actions. It is appalling that they can hide behind "the company" and escape any sort of PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY for what they did. Their actions directly led to people's deaths - how is that not homicide or manslaughter??? 

Here are some legal definitions of reckless and negligent homicide: 


T.C.A. § 39-13-212 defines criminally negligent homicide as criminally negligent conduct, which results in the alleged victim's death. For a defendant to be found guilty of criminally negligent homicide, the state of Tennessee must prove each of the following elements beyond a reasonable doubt:

The defendant's criminally negligent conduct resulted in the death of the alleged victim; and
The defendant acted with criminal negligence.
The crux of negligent homicide is contained in the definition of criminal negligence under the Tennessee code. Pursuant to T.C.A. § 39-11-302(d), "criminal negligence" refers to when a person acts negligently with respect to circumstances of which he or she should be aware will create a substantial and unjustifiable risk of homicide. To be criminal negligence, however, the risk must be of such a nature and degree that the failure to perceive it constitutes a gross deviation from the standard of care that an ordinary person would exercise under all the circumstances as viewed from the accused person's standpoint.

The definition of criminal negligence and criminal recklessness are pretty similar. The key difference lies in what the defendant knew or was aware of at the time of the homicidal conduct. Under the same section as above, the code refers to a person who acts recklessly with respect to circumstances creating a risk of homicide when the person is aware of but consciously disregards a substantial and unjustifiable risk that a homicide will occur. Therefore, the difference between negligent homicide and reckless homicide is that in the case of recklessness, the person was actually aware that he created a substantial risk of homicide; whereas in negligent homicide, the person didn't know that his actions created such a risk - but he should have.


If you've already seen dozens of people killed because of these defects, how is that not criminal negligence? 

[WanderingWinoZ]

Yup, I'm in the thick of all this now. It's ugly, but I can also see how these things happen & it's often difficult to sort out the "real" claims from all the bogus ones that people allege. I've seen crazy stuff on both sides.

[WOT?*]

CORPORATIONS ARE NOT PEOPLE! I wish the government would get that right.  Corporations are nameless, faceless entities.  It was not a nameless, faceless entity that made the decision to market a defective product that killed people.

You can't jail a corporation. You SHOULD jail a person who makes a corporate decision to ignore or conceal a defect that harms or kills real, live people.