ST. LOUIS (Legal Newsline) – A federal judge has refused jurisdiction over a lawsuit that blames General Motors for the theft of a Mercury Mountaineer by an unknown party who then crashed into a Chevy Camaro, killing two people.
The suit, filed in 2019, said Joe-K Used Cars sold the Mountaineer to Michael Hunter despite him not having a valid driver’s license because of alcohol- and drug-related infractions. On Dec. 17, 2018, Hunter left his keys in the Mountaineer, and it was stolen, the suit says.
Nikita Thompson was killed in the ensuing collision, as was Chananya Siripaph. Thompson’s mother Nancy and Siripaph’s widower Weibin Lam are suing for wrongful death.
The defendants attempted to bring the case out of St. Louis City Circuit Court. Though Joe-K and Hunter were Missouri residents, an amended complaint in 2019 named GM as a defendant, and the company is a citizen of Delaware and Michigan.
GM removed the case to federal court in 2019, but Lam added claims against Nikita Thompson; those claims were settled for $25,000 after the case was remanded to St. Louis City court.
After the settlement was approved, GM again removed the case. Federal judge Sarah Pitlyk on July 28 ruled the removal was untimely and granted the plaintiffs’ motion to remand back to St. Louis City court.
“GM argues that even if the action was not initially removable, the one-year limitation is still inapplicable because Plaintiffs acted in bad faith to prevent removal,” Pitlyk wrote.
“Nevertheless, even under its preferred framework, GM’s argument fails.”
GM argued that Lam, after adding Thompson’s estate as a defendant, failed to actively litigate it in order to keep the case in state court. Lam says he served discovery requests and negotiated and obtained a settlement.
“Lam also provides a plausible explanation for the relative paucity of discovery toward the Estate and for not relying on experts to develop theories of liability, explaining that video evidence provided sufficient factual information and no depositions have been taken from any party.”
Lam is entitled to a presumption of good faith pursuit of his claims against the estate, and GM failed to prove otherwise, Pitlyk wrote.