A federal appeals court has ruled that General Motors must confront a class action lawsuit, which alleges that the company knowingly sold hundreds of thousands of vehicles equipped with faulty transmissions.
According to Reuters, the lawsuit pertains to the 8L45 and 8L90 eight-speed automatic transmissions found in models from 2015 to 2019. This issue affects around 800,000 vehicles, including Chevrolet Silverados, Colorados, Camaros, and Corvettes, along with various GMC models like the Sierra and Yukon, as well as Cadillacs including the CTS, CT6, and Escalade. Despite attempts at repair, the transmissions allegedly continue to “shudder and shake in higher gears” and “hesitate and lurch” in lower ones. Initially filed in 2018, the lawsuit also claims that GM directed dealerships to tell customers that rough shifting was “normal.”
In response, GM argues that most class members “never experienced problems” and that there are “too many differences among class members to justify group lawsuits.”
However, the judge has dismissed this argument. Circuit Judge Karen Nelson Moore stated, “Exactly how, and to what extent, each of the individual plaintiffs experienced a shudder or shift quality is irrelevant” to the matter of whether GM concealed known defects. In essence, producing poor-quality products may not be illegal (as long as no one is harmed), but misleading consumers about those products is a serious issue.
The final outcome for owners of these vehicles is yet to be determined. The case is identified as Speerly et al v. General Motors LLC, 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, No. 23-1940. Consumers are being represented by the law firm Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll.
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