First NYC trial starts in GM ignition switch recall case

NEW YORK (AP) — A jury was selected today for a Manhattan civil trial aimed at testing the legal boundaries of hundreds of claims remaining against General Motors over faulty ignition switches.

Opening statements were scheduled for Tuesday in the first of six trials scheduled over the next year to narrow legal issues in lawsuits affecting more than 1,000 people. Hundreds of lawsuits were consolidated in Manhattan federal court, where Judge Jesse M. Furman questioned prospective jurors for several hours in a search for people who could be fair and impartial.

A section of a tarp-covered car rested in the courtroom where the claims of a Tulsa, Okla., man were to be aired before a dozen jurors. The trial focuses on an Oklahoma crash that injured Robert Scheuer.

His lawyers will argue that a faulty ignition switch prevented the air bags in his 2003 Saturn Ion from deploying when he was run off an Oklahoma highway on May 28, 2014, by another vehicle and crashed into trees, Furman told prospective jurors.