(Bloomberg) -- General Motors Co. extended its ignition-switch trial win streak as a Texas jury found the safety defect played no role in a fatal 2011 crash.

The verdict, in state court in Houston, is the company’s third trial win following two in federal court in New York. Hundreds of ignition switch claims remain, spurred by the company’s recall of millions of vehicles for a flaw ultimately linked to hundreds of deaths and injuries.

The jury of eight women and four men took only about an hour to reach its decision following a three-week trial in Houston.

Jurors heard GM Chief Executive Officer Mary Barra testify by video that the company’s failure to properly classify the ignition flaw as a safety defect — which would’ve triggered a massive recall — was part of a “series of mistakes” that had “tragic consequences,” including some deaths.

In 2014, GM recalled 2.6 million U.S. cars with potentially faulty ignition switches that may jostle off, cutting power and preventing safety systems such as power steering, power brakes, air bags and seat belts, from working as designed.

Dueling accident reconstruction experts in the Houston trial gave the jury sharply different versions of how the crash occurred, as Zachary Stevens, now 24, has no memory of the accident.

“What happened was simple and tragic: this was a high-speed side-impact crash on a wet road caused by a reckless young man who tried to pass cars on the right shoulder and lost control,” General Motors spokesman Jim Cain said in an e-mailed statement. “As a result, an innocent man was killed.”

‘Heartbreaking’ loss

Josh Davis, a lawyer for Stevens, called the loss “heartbreaking” for the family. He’d sought a jury award of $15.5 million plus punitive damages.

GM said the crash occurred after Stevens lost control of his mother’s Saturn Sky while speeding recklessly on a rain-slick country road, ultimately smashing sideways into an oncoming truck. The air bag didn’t deploy because it was a side impact, not because of an ignition switch failure, Mike Brock, GM’s lawyer told jurors.

“Every expert in the case agrees that if it’s a side impact, the air bag is not designed to deploy,’’ he said in closing arguments Thursday. “The recall condition — the ignition switch — did not occur.’’

Stevens’s lawyer said Zach lost power steering and power brakes when his ignition switch jiggled off, causing him to smash into the oncoming truck at an oblique frontal angle that should have triggered the airbags. The fact that Stevens’s air bags and seat belt pretensioners didn’t fire are tell-tale indicators the car’s power was off, Davis told jurors.

“That defect wipes out all safety systems,’’ he said.

Fast driving

Davis conceded that Stevens was speeding before the accident, but that didn’t absolve GM of responsibility. “When our kids drive too fast,’’ or text and drive, he said, “We still get our safety features in our car. GM was still negligent.’’

Jurors also had to decide what to make of false evidence provided by Stevens family members, who gave them the wrong car key and inaccurate testimony about how they found it.

GM complained the Stevenses faked the evidence to bolster their claim the switch jostled, because GM’s recall notice warned owners that added weight on a key ring could contribute to jiggling the ignition. The Stevenses’ lawyer insisted the family innocently mistook the key they gave jurors — which most likely belonged to Zach’s GMC truck — as the missing Saturn Sky key when it was found on the mother’s misplaced key bundle in a storage tub retrieved from the family’s flooded garage last month.

Texas State Judge Robert Schaffer refused GM’s request to throw out the case because of the false key evidence. But he personally told jurors they’d been given the wrong key and let them consider that when weighing the Stevenses’ credibility.

The case is Stevens v. General Motors LLC, 2015-04442, 152nd Judicial District Court of Harris County, Texas (Houston).

Special Reports /

GM extends ignition-switch win streak with trial victory

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