A federal district court judge in New York City's Southern
District, applying Virginia law, recently invoked the concept of a
manufacturer's "post-sale duty to warn" to hold an
automobile company potentially liable for failing to warn about an
alleged defect in a car that it technically did not even
manufacture. The ruling came in the context of the General
Motors Ignition Switch multidistrict litigation
(14-MD-2543).
Manufacturer versus Post-bankruptcy Successor
The plaintiff's compact car went off the road, but its
airbags failed to deploy because of an alleged defect in the
car's ignition switch that caused the airbags to move to the
"off" position. Judge Jesse Furman denied a motion for
summary judgment brought by the "new" GM, the
post-bankruptcy successor to the "old" GM (OGM), the
car's actual manufacturer, noting, for example, that "new
GM" (NGM) had assumed OGM's warranty obligations to its
customers when NGM entered into the 2009 sales agreement with
