(FROM THE WALL STREET JOURNAL 2/2/15) 
   By Jeff Bennett and Mike Spector 

The cost of General Motors Co.'s victims-compensation fund isn't expected to exceed the $400 million to $600 million the auto maker set aside to pay those killed or injured on account of faulty ignition switches, but it will take weeks for the fund to sort through a late rush of claims filed before the deadline passed this weekend.

GM's victims-compensation fund, administered by Washington attorney Kenneth Feinberg, stopped taking new claims Sunday morning after thousands poured in from consumers seeking redress. The fund, started in August, is one of the several steps being taken by GM in an attempt to restore credibility and limit legal liability amid a record pace of safety recalls.

Mr. Feinberg's work, however, will do little to stanch widespread concern about vehicle safety and leave unanswered many questions about victim compensation. Intended to compensate those killed or injured in a batch of small cars built with faulty ignition switches that prevented air-bag deployment, the fund received more than 3,350 claims as of Thursday and roughly quadrupled the death toll from GM's initial estimate of 13, to 50. Serious injuries receiving compensation totaled at least 75.

The death-toll and injury figures are expected to climb further as Mr. Feinberg and his lieutenants continue sifting through claims.

Many are wondering if the actions go far enough.

GM, for instance, covered in its fund only a fraction of consumers affected by ignition-switch problems ultimately spanning millions of vehicles and an array of models. Vehicles equipped with the defective switch can inadvertently jostle from the "on" to "accessory" or "off" position and cut power to air bags and electronic steering.

The company faces class-action lawsuits related to alleged safety lapses, and continuing probes by the Justice Department and others could cost GM billions of dollars in fines.

In an interview, Mr. Feinberg and his associate, Camille Biros, said their work should help restore GM's credibility and head off future lawsuits. Claimants accepting payouts must waive their right to sue GM.

It could take Mr. Feinberg's team weeks to finish going through petitions related to a batch of roughly 2.6 million recalled vehicles. "We are bending over backward to help these individuals by giving them more than one or two opportunities to provide the information to us," Ms. Biros said.

Payments span $20,000 to $1 million, but the final tab won't be disclosed until every claim has been reviewed. Most of the claims received have lacked required evidence, such as a police report, or include cars not covered by the fund.

Importantly, said Mr. Feinberg, "of those who have been eligible for compensation, not one, so far, has rejected a payout offer." As for GM's role, the auto company has been "cooperative," he said.

In determining compensation, Mr. Feinberg's team greatly widened the definition of victim.

"GM took the approach of a strict engineering standard," Ms. Biros said. "We looked at everything and we were more flexible. We looked at photographs, police reports and historical maintenance records. So if there was a history of problems and in the accident the air bags didn't deploy, we leaned toward paying the claims."

Most claimants are in their early 20s because many of the affected vehicles -- older Saturn Ions and Chevrolet Cobalts -- were sold to young people. Many accidents included other potential causes, such as speeding, drinking or distraction, according to Ms. Biros.

Under GM's earlier parameters, most of these victims wouldn't have been offered a settlement.

Still, Mr. Feinberg's work omits anyone involved in crashes tied to more than eight million vehicles recalled in June with similarly problematic ignition switches. GM has identified three deaths tied to two crashes involving older Chevrolet Impalas that are among those recalled vehicles.

GM says there isn't conclusive evidence linking the three deaths, all the result of high-speed crashes, to the defect.

"I was hopeful early on Mr. Feinberg and others would convince GM . . . to broaden the compensation plan to include these other vehicles. It appears they will not do it," said Lance Cooper, the Georgia lawyer influential in discovering the root cause of the ignition-switch problem in smaller vehicles.

Ms. Biros referred any questions about expanding the scope of the compensation fund to GM. "The facility has no authority to add other GM model vehicles to the list of eligible vehicles under the protocol," she said.

"The specific fact patterns are substantively different between the various recalls," a spokesman for GM said.

With the second large round of recalls in June, "it isn't clear" whether the switches caused accidents, said David Cole, chairman emeritus of the Center for Automotive Research, a group that gets some funding from auto makers. "You can't automatically infer this is the same thing that went on there," he said.

But he added that GM has to "step up" if the causes of the crashes are directly linked to the other faulty switches.

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