Gerri tonight we begin with the gm recall. The story gets bigger and bigger. We received word General Motors is recalling 8. 4 million more cars. Gm has recalled over 28 million cars so far this year. That is more than every other carmaker recalled last year, all of last year. And settlement announced today is shaping up to be the biggest in u. S. History. Some of the recalled cars today were involved in fatal crashes. Well have more on that with consumer advocate ralph nader. First we have details of the gm ignition switch Compensation Fund. The following individual can file under this program. The driver. Any passengers in the automobile. Any pedestrian. Any occupant of a second vehicle involved in the accident. All eligible to file a claim. Gerri that was ken feinberg. He is the funds administrator. If his name sound familiar it is because he handled the Compensation Fund for september 11th victims at the world trade center. Also victims of the bp oil spill and survivors of the boston bombing. Here with more, here is more of what feinberg had to say. Any contributor to negligence of the contributory negligence of the driver, intoxication, speeding, texting on a cell phone, et cetera, irrelevant under this program. Irrelevant. Contributory, this program is about General Motors and ignition switches. We have no interest in evaluating any alleged contributory negligence on the part of the driver. It is totally irrelevant. We have no interest. Gerri so Fascinating Press Conference there. Joining us tonight to help explain it all, two attorneys, bob hilliard in chicago and Robin Greenwald right here in new york. They both represent the families of people who were killed or injured while driving some of these defect tiff gm cars. Im going to start with bob. Weve had you on many times. You talked about your clients. You talked about gm pretty much at length. My question for you tonight is, will you recommend that your clients take the deal that feinberg is discussing . Good afternoon, gerri. We dont know what the deal is yet. I will recommend that they participate in the plan because there is no downside. At the end of the day, ken feinberg will make an award f that award is unreasonable or not fair, then they can walk away at that point. There is no such thing as too much information and while we put them in the plan we can still pursue their litigation. And once the award is made, again, well sit down and advise each client based on that clients specific fact situation because there are some attractive components to it as mr. Feinberg set out. Lack of contributory negligence as a defense. No bankruptcy as a defense. So were really be a casebycase, client by client evaluation, after the award is made. Gerri all right. I want to bring in robin who is also an attorney, representing victims in this cash. Crash. Robin, to cap as we were saying no cap on awards that could be made. Gm says were not even putting a price tag on this fund because we dont know what it is going to be. Also if you sued and had a settlement lets say, you had a settlement with gm you can also come back to the table here. Will you recommend, robin, your clients take this deal . It will depend. There is some good aspects to the fund as i think people have been talking about. Theres, it is an uncapped fund. There is no requirement that someone, that there be a certain percentage of people participating in the fund. A claimant can go into the find out, what kind of claim he or she receives and decides whether to take it or not. There is no requirement once youre in the fund to accept what you get. There are certain structural aspects of the fund that are positive but there are some pretty substantial deficiencies in the fund. So it would really depend on the individual. For example, some people who were seriously injured by these cars are not even eligible to participate in the fund. Gerri how so. Wait, wait. How so . Well, for example, someone who is injured and sent home, reality of life, you go to the hospital, to the emergency room. Youre not, youre not catastrophically injured. I havent broken 10 bones or youre not gushing blood. So they send you home. It is reality of our Health Care System. So they go home. Three, four, five days later theyre unable to lift their arm over their head. They can barely stand up. Their backs are really bad. They have very serious injuries but theyre not immediately understood. Then they have to find a Health Care System that takes them and figures out what is wrong with them. Theyre out of this fund because bring up a very good point, which is, that a lot of people may not qualify because of what happened in the wake of their accident. Maybe they werent hospitalized. But maybe there is not a great paper trail. Maybe the accident happened some time ago. Bob to you, is this, maybe not your clients but will this happen to a lot of americans who think maybe theyre eligible for this but they simply cant prove it . Well the benefit of the doubt has to go to the victim because quite frankly the coverup was successful. Most of the evidence is gone. Cars have gone to junkyards. Police reports are only available for a certain amount of years. And if youre thinking about it, lets say that you had, your whole family killed in an accident where cobalt crossed a center lane and hit your familys car eight years ago. Those victims are likely never going to be found, gerri, and they will never come forward. Regardless of the number that participates in the fund or litigation, gm will get away with many, many injuries and deaths they will never have to address financially through a compensation program. Gerri they said a lot of these cases nobody really knows whether the defects of a gm car were responsible. I want to move on, this is a fairly grisly conversation, i warn our viewers about amounts of money talked about here. The kinds of things that will be calculated when feinberg sits down with the materials for any victim. The age of the victim, their salary, their earning potential. Were talking aboutwards that could be 20,000 to millions and millions of dollars. As much as you youve been able to see so far, robin, of what feinberg is talking about, does this sound usual and routine . Is this the way this kind of thing is typically handled . I dont know there is a typical. What happened in this gm situation is typical of absolutely nothing. We had another eight million cars recalled today for an ignition switch problem. I would guess say there is nothing typical about this case. One of the biggest deficiencies of this fund right now it only covers a first recall, which was 2. 6 million cars. And now, with todays recall of almost eight million and one of about two weeks ago, you have so many vehicles that arent even covered in this fund which is unfortunate. Gerri wait a minute. Bob, to you, maybe it is not, maybe it is not typical but you have seen feinberg in action many times. Yes, we have. Gerri in these kind of cases, bob to you, were there any surprises for you today or did you see everything you expected . Everything i expected and i also read there are many clauses in there that gives the ken feinberg the independent right in his sole judgment to determine extraordinary circumstances. This fund will either succeed or fail based on that independence and the independence has to lean in favor of the victim. It has to be construed simply because of amount of time it has passed. There is no other way to construe it. If youre using fund to prevent recoveries, and i dont think that is ken feinbergs intent, then the fund will not be successful and there will be a lot of criticism of the fund. But for my clients i take a look at any settlement offer that is ever made and i evaluate each settlement offer based on the facts of my clients case. That is basically what this is. Gerri i want, robin, did you have a quick comment to make . I would agree. One of the positives i started out with, claimants can go into this fund and negotiate with the claims administrator and potentially get an excellent settlement. That is available to them. If they dont like their offer they dont have to take it which is a positive of this fund. There is no question about it. There is nothing binding. Gerri weve got a long way to go on this one. This could take years to play out. Robin, bob, thanks for coming on. Appreciate your time. Thank you. Good see, gerri. Gerri good to see you. We have more people on gm. Consumer advocate ralph nader became a household name in the 1960s, when he wrote a book, unsafe at any speed. The book about a bestselling chevy corvair, that had steering problems. Sound familiar . Ralph joins us from washington, d. C. Thanks for being with us. You started this whole car Safety Movement about 49 years ago. What are your reflexes tonight. Is history repeating itself . Well history is repeating itself in terms of selling defective vehicles and note telling for years the customers about the defects which have resulted in deaths and injuries but the, i think the publics expectation level of the way a auto company should behave is much higher reflected today in what ken feinberg put out. You would not have seen this proposal put out years ago. Having said that though, ken feinberg, recognizes it will be very difficult to try to reconstruct crashes from eight 10 years ago, six years ago, when they dont even have the vehicle. So he has discretionary burden. I mean he says, first of all, that you have to show youre part of recall with the ignition switch. You have the right model car, cobalt, saturn. You have to show that the airbags didnt deploy. That could be pre difficult if there is no longer any evidence that is viable and a car is somewhere in the scrap heap. That will then say to kenneth feinberg, you have to use your best judgment and your discretion. He is given that kind of discretion. Lets remember, there are millions of other gm vehicles with defects before and after the bankruptcy that are excluded from the feinberg category. So the feinberg category just deals with the ignition switch but gm got away with a lot of major claims against it with that caping ga rao Court Bankruptcy back a few years ago kangaroo. Gerri theyre saying tonight that the bankruptcy is not an issue here. Whether youre prebankruptcy or probankruptcy you can make a claim. That is not issue. That is just with the ignition switch youre right. Gerri right. And there are other cars gerri that is certainly what were talking about here. But remember gerri is the ignition switch problem. But mary barra said our company has a civic duty to, compassionate duty for all victims much our defect cars. She didnt restrict it. This is restricted just to the ignition switch and there are families who were blotted out of their right to have their day in court by this bankruptcy court. I want to show viewers here, we have the ignition switch on set with us. This is from one of the small cars that had problems and heres the key right here. And put my hand in it. This is the problem switch right here. You can knock it with your knee, heavy key chain, anything can move it and this would disable the automatic steering, power brakes, power steering and your airbags. Ralph, to you, as we look at biggest auto settlements ever, toyota, 1. 2 billion, hyundai and key yaw, 395 million, the list goes on and on, gm is likely going to have settlement here that will be far in excess of even the biggest ever settlement of toyota at 1. 2 billion. Well between the fines, lets remember, there is Justice Department criminal investigation out of new york city into the whole gm scandal. Between the criminal fines and the settlements and the verdicts and the costs to gm this is at least going to be a 10 billiondollar burden. Some of it will be deductible. But, the nice thing gerri that is something i want to talk to you b and youre assuming that the criminal proceedings will be successful and go forward. The company saying say they will take a 1. 2 billion charge to earnings to cover some of these costs. Is that right . We paid to bail out this company and now taxpayer dollars going to make them whole when for 10 years they sit around and dont take action on a problem with a car that they know well is occurring . Good point there is bill in congress to prohibit companies from being able to deduct what in effect are fines on their income tax but the tax lawyers will use every loophole possible or every possibility under the tax laws to do what you are just referring to. But at the very least, in the feinberg plan, not only can claimants opt out and decide they want to go to court on their own and have a trial by jury, but, and this is the key, that feinberg is able to apply a presumption that if there is a record of stalling on a vehicle, the claim is valid. That they dont have to prove that the airbag did not, did not deploy from something 10 years ago where the car disappeared, on a scrap heap and cant prove it. Youre saying if it had a record of stalling. Thats right. There could be a finding. Just stalling should require a recall. You shouldnt require stalling and the disables of the airbag because you can get into a terrible crash just by stalling, right . Gerri i think that is what we showed, absolutely. You know that for some time gm didnt consider a stall a problem. Thats right t was considered inconvenience. Gerri we were supposed to able to pull the car off to the side of the rhode spite the fact we had no power steering. The important thing this may lead to stronger auto safety regulation to protect motorists on the road. Gerri does that do any good if companies themselves dont have the Corporate Culture or stomach to take care of find them as they find them . I dont care what the law says, if the companies can not do the right thing inside their own walls how will it help . It is an easy way. I proposed it to General Motors. Mary barra appoints a independent ombudsman that so that engineers can report defect from the ombudsman and ombudsman has direct line to her and ceos office under total confidentiality so they cant be retaliated against. The key is protect the conscientious engineer. Gerri we have to go, ralph. Thank you for being on. Youre welcome. Gerri stay tuned to fox business, our very own nearly cavuto interviews the ken feinberg, the guy weve been talking about at 8 00 p. M. Eastern tonight. A lot more to come this hour. Your voice is important to us. During the sew we want you to facebook my or tweet me gerriwillisfbn. Or gerriwillis. Com. At the bottom of the hour i will read your emails. Obamacare suffers a setback from the Supreme Court. Well investigate what todays religious ruling means. The white house turns to the private sector to help the va well tell you about that. When folks think about what they get from alaska, they think salmon and energy. But the energy bp produces up here creates Something Else as well jobs all over america. Engineering and innovation jobs. Advanced Safety Systems technology. Shipping and manufacturing. Across the united states, bp supports more than a quarter million jobs. When we set up operation in one part of the country, people in other parts go to work. Thats not a coincidence. Its one more part of our commitment to america. Gerri stream court handing down a big victory for hobby lobby and dealing a blow to obamacare in a 54 ruling. Justices determined some companies can opt out of obamacares contraceptive care mandate if they have religious objections. Doug, welcome back to the show. This is a company, small company, closely held. The owners have very serious religious convictions. They did not want to sponsor their employees buying contraception and they won. How important is this legal victory . I think it is very important victory. Certainly important politically. You and i both know how many battles have been fought over the style of legislation that is obamacare. Heavy on mandates, heavy on telling people how to live their lives. It is an important legal victory. It is certainly important to hobby lobby. It is not a sweeping victory however. It is limited on the corporate side to closelyheld corporations. There are a fair number of them but they dont cover a lot of employees or production in the u. S. It is limited on the health care side to small bun. Of morning after contraceptives and it is not a sweeping indictment of the mandate in the law as a whole. So it has been tailored to hit very narrowly, never important victory for the plaintiffs and certainly important victory politically. Gerri a black eye somewhat for obamacare. Sure. Gerri here is what Justice Samuel alito said in the case. The companies are closely held corporations and each controlled by members after Single Family and no one disputed sincerity of their religious beliefs. If the owners comply with the mandate they belief they will be facilitating abortions f they do not comply they will pay a very heavy price, 1. 3 million per day or 475 million per year. Doesnt this just bring into sharp relief the kinds of unexpected issues that would crop up with a passage of obamacare . The idea that the law was just not thought out . It was both not wellthought out but in some case there is was warning in advance. Hobby lobby was not shy about saying we think this is a bad idea. Were going to sue if you do this, please tailor this in a way it doesnt capture us and allows to us exercise our beliefs. The administration ignored that. And now they have taken all this in court and lost yet again. There is black eye here, not just on unintended consequences but things done deliberately. That from the process of developing legislation, the process doing reform to the united states, there is major lesson there. Listen to stakeholders as you draft the law. Gerri wow, that is astonishing idea, doug. Democracy. Thank you so much for coming on. Were short on time, doug, thanks. Thank you, gerri. Gerri we want to know what you think. Here is our question tonight. Should the Government Force private companies to pay for workers contraception . Log on to gerriwillis. Com, vote on the righthand side of the screen and i will share results at end of tonights show. Coming next, can the former head of Proctor Gamble save the va . Plus what should he do on day one . Also, banks are offering credit cards to riskier borrowers. What will that mean for us, for the rest of us, will we have to pay higher Interest Rates. Stay with us. Many of my patients still clean their dentures with toothpaste. But they have to use special care in keeping the denture clean. Den