Groman v. General Motors LLC.

District Court, S.D. New York·Decided March 4, 2020·No. 1:14-cv-02458·Unknown

Opinion

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK

IN RE: GM LLC IGNITION SWITCH LITIGATION 14-MD-2543 (JMF) 14-MC-2543 (JMF) This Document Relates to All Actions ORDER NO. 167

JESSE M. FURMAN, United States District Judge: [Regarding Procedures and Schedule for Wave Four Targeted Discovery and Motion Practice and Additional Wave Pools to Address Remaining Personal Injury Claims] Given the remarkable success of the “wave” process in this multidistrict litigation (“MDL”) to date, the Court agrees with New GM that a Wave Four should be adopted to address the remaining personal injury and wrongful death claims (many of which were filed after the previous waves were adopted) and any new claims filed in the future. For good cause shown, the Court thus adopts the following schedule and procedures for Wave Four discovery of and motion practice regarding the remaining personal injury and wrongful death cases, as well any new claims that may be filed and consolidated going forward. That said, the Court is sympathetic to Lead Counsel’s concerns regarding claims that have been pending in this MDL for a significant amount of time. See ECF No. 7783, at 3. To help ensure that such claims are advanced more quickly, with an eye toward settlement or remand, the Court would be open to adopting more “aggressive” procedures claims that were initially filed before January 1, 2017 (i.e., the first seven claims listed in ECF No. 7783-2), including but not limited to perhaps allowing “bilateral fact and expert discovery” for such claims. Id. at 5. Lead Counsel and counsel for New GM shall meet and confer to discuss the issue and, no later than March 13, 2020, submit an agreed-upon proposed order with respect to these claims or competing orders and letter briefs. Unless and until the Court adopts additional or different procedures for such claims, they shall be subject to the schedule and procedures set forth herein. A. Identification of Wave Four Plaintiffs. 1. To be eligible to participate in Wave Four, a plaintiff must satisfy all of the following criteria: (1) the plaintiff’s claims must be transferred to and consolidated in MDL 2543;1

(2) the plaintiff must not have been included in Wave One, Wave Two, or Wave Three (see Order Nos. 141, 151, and 160; Docket Nos. 5074, 5653, and 6511); (3) the plaintiff must not be subject to a motion to withdraw or Order No. 137-type procedures (Docket No. 4840); (4) the plaintiff must not be eligible to participate in a settlement; and (5) the plaintiff’s claims must not be subject to a pending motion for summary judgment. 2. By Thursday, March 5, 2020, New GM will file on the main MDL docket a list of plaintiffs eligible to participate in Wave Four (and identify any pro se claimant). 3. By the same date, New GM shall serve a copy of its submission, along with a copy of this Order, on any unrepresented plaintiff on the list, and shall file proof of such service on the main MDL docket within three business days.

4. By Friday, March 6, 2020, New GM and Lead Counsel shall file on the main MDL docket a joint list of cases eligible to participate in Wave Four. To the extent there is any dispute about this combined list, New GM and Lead Counsel shall address the disputes in a joint letter- brief to the Court on that same date. Once any disputes are resolved by the Court, the resulting plaintiffs shall be referred to as the “Wave Four plaintiffs.”

1 By including in Wave Four plaintiffs whose accidents occurred prior to July 10, 2009, New GM is not waiving any defenses relating to the July 9, 2009 Bankruptcy Court Sale Order and Injunction. On the contrary, New GM is expressly preserving any and all of its objections and defenses relating to the Order and Injunction. B. Severance of Complaints. 5. Any Wave Four plaintiffs whose claims are included in a complaint brought on behalf of multiple plaintiffs bringing personal injury and/or wrongful death claims arising out of different accidents or incidents will be severed upon the parties’ joint filing described in Paragraph 4 above. Unless and until the Court directs or orders otherwise, however, the Clerk of Court shall

not terminate any such Wave Four plaintiff from his or her original docket. (The Court will direct or order such termination instead after either (a) the plaintiff has filed an amended and severed complaint pursuant to Paragraphs 6 and 7 below, or (b) the plaintiff has been dismissed with prejudice for failure to comply with this Order.) 6. By Friday, April 3, 2020, each Wave Four plaintiff subject to Paragraph 5 above shall refile his or her complaint or an amended complaint in this Court and pay any filing fee associated with filing a complaint pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1914(a) or be dismissed without prejudice. By Friday, May 1, 2020, any such dismissal without prejudice will automatically convert to a dismissal with prejudice unless any such dismissed Wave Four plaintiff refiles his or her amended complaint and pays the required filing fee in accordance with this order. See, e.g., In

re Asbestos Prods. Liab. Litig., 2008 WL 4290954, at *2-3 (E.D. Pa. Sept. 18, 2008) (requiring amended and severed complaint and payment of filing fee within 60 days on pain of dismissal with prejudice); In re Seroquel Prods. Liab. Litig., 2007 WL 737589, at *3 (M.D. Fla. Mar. 7, 2007) (noting “gatekeeping feature of a filing fee and the cost of managing [] additional cases in the federal court system as a whole, both as part of this multi-district case and once remanded to the transferor or other proper court, as individual cases”). In conjunction with any amended and severed complaint, a Wave Four plaintiff shall also file a Related Case Statement, available at www.nysd.uscourts.gov/forms.php, identifying the new lawsuit as related to these proceedings (In re General Motors LLC Ignition Switch Litigation, 14-MD-2543 (JMF)). Any complaint or amended complaint refiled pursuant to this Order shall be treated for all purposes as if it were filed on the date the original consolidated complaint was filed. 7. To facilitate the assignment of these new cases to the undersigned for inclusion in the MDL and the orderly termination of Amending Plaintiffs from their initial dockets (as of the

date of the newly filed amended and severed complaint), each Amending Plaintiff shall (1) prominently note in the Related Case Statement that he or she is an existing plaintiff in an existing case, citing the case name and docket number of that case; (2) reference in the Related Case Statement the MDL Order pursuant to which he or she is filing an amended and severed complaint; and (3) attach as an exhibit to the Related Case Statement a copy of the original complaint in which the Amending Plaintiff is already associated. C. Wave Four Discovery Scope and Timing. 8. Scope of Targeted Discovery. Case-specific discovery of Wave Four plaintiffs shall be limited to: (a) the scope of the plaintiff’s accident causation claims (e.g., is plaintiff claiming that an ignition switch rotation caused the accident, caused air bag non-deployment, or both?); (b) the sequence of events leading up to and during the accident; (c) whether the ignition

switch rotated during the accident sequence; (d) whether the air bag should have deployed during the accident; (e) when and how plaintiff first discovered (or with the exercise of reasonable diligence should have discovered) they had a potential claim relating to the accident; and (f) when the subject vehicle was first purchased or sold. a. Written Discovery: Written discovery and document production shall be limited to substantially complete Plaintiff Fact Sheets (“PFS”) and compliance with Order Nos. 108 or 148 (Docket Nos. 3115, 5373).

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Groman v. General Motors LLC., (S.D.N.Y. 2020).

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