Woman Files Suit Against GM, Dealer For Husband And Daughter's Death After Vehicle Bursts Into Flames

A woman has filed suit against General Motors de Mexico, Dutch Miller Chevrolet, and Dutch Miller Enterprises, alleging that they are responsible for the fatal personal injuries her husband and 13-year-old daughter suffered.

According to a suit filed by Deborah Oehlschlaeger on November 23 in West Virginia’s Cabell Circuit Court, Jeffrey E. George and Hannah E. George were in a vehicle manufactured by General Motors and purchased from Dutch Miller on December 3, 2008 when it collided with a guardrail and immediately burst into flames.

Oehlschlaeger said that her husband and daughter survived the initial accident and attempted to exit the vehicle, but could not and died from burns and smoke inhalation.

The suit alleges that the vehicle in question, a 2004 Chevrolet Suburban, was defective and in an unreasonably dangerous condition when “put to its ordinary and intended uses and reasonably foreseeable purposes.”

The suit alleges negligence on the part of the defendants in their manufacture, design, assembly, service, inspection, testing, market, distribution, export, and sale of the vehicle and failure to warn of the unreasonably dangerous condition.

Oehlschlaeger seeks compensatory damages of $25,000 plus punitive damages.