GM ignition switch trial abruptly dismissed

The first of potentially many trials against General Motors over its faulty ignition switches was dismissed Friday following allegations the plaintiff lied on the stand.

Lawyers for both plaintiff Robert Scheuer and GM agreed to drop the case, which was in its second week of trial, according to new documents filed in Manhattan federal court.

“I really do commend you for doing the right and sensible thing,” Judge Jesse Furman told the lawyers Friday morning, prior to dismissing 12 jurors.

Scheuer, a mailman from Oklahoma, and his wife were accused by GM of exaggerating the injuries he sustained in a 2014 car crash and doctoring financial documents that backed up his claims.

Scheuer, 49, sued the car giant after the airbags in his 2003 Saturn Ion didn’t deploy in the accident. He had claimed to have suffered serious neck and back injuries as a result.

In court Thursday, Furman sided with GM, which had argued that Scheuer had a 20-year history of medication and surgeries for serious back and neck problems prior to the crash.

“The fact that there are indisputably serious pre-existing injuries here, whether or not that explains the injuries that Mr. Scheuer alleges here aside, is certainly a complicating factor,” the judge said.

Earlier this week, the car company said it had evidence that Scheuer fudged a financial document for a new home that the family wound up losing — which he blamed on the accident.

“… Plaintiffs have only themselves to blame for the fact that this case has become such an outlier case,” Furman told lawyers Thursday.

The couple has since retained a criminal defense lawyer in light of the new revelations.

Scheuer’s case was the first of six so-called “bellwether” trials that are common in mass class-action lawsuits.

James Cain, a GM spokesman, cheered the dismissal.

“We said all along that each case would be decided on its own merits, and we had already started to show by strong, clear and convincing evidence to the jury that the ignition switch didn’t have anything to do with Mr. Scheuer’s accident or injuries,” he said in a statement.

“The apparent lies the plaintiff and his wife told the jury ended the trial early, and we are pleased that the case is over without any payment whatsoever to Mr. Scheuer.”

Bob Hilliard, who represented Scheuer, called the trial’s end disappointing, “especially one such as this where the concerns regarding the underlying safety of certain of GM’s vehicles are legitimate and real.”

With Post wires