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Ragnarok

Lawsuit over Sullivan crash.

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I'm pretty drunk right now, so I might delete this in the morning.
I can understand the parents suing the dropzone and only the dropzone, if and only if gross negligence was proven, which is obviously not the case this early.



Filing the suit gives them access to discovery from the other side. It gives them access to information that might prove gross negligence. They can drop the suit later.

When you file a lawsuit, you pretty much have to file against all potentially responsible parties, or the other side can blame it on someone not in the suit. (again, this is not about any dropzone/situation in particular, just the potential legal issues) For example "even though our maintenance was bad, the main cause of the crash was the pilot..." If you haven't named the pilot, then there's nobody there who can speak on the pilot's behalf.

In many states, victims or families in personal injury or wrongful death suits MUST sue everyone who may have contributed in any way to the injury or death. Failing to include every potentially responsible party leaves an "empty chair" in the case that gives the other defendants an opportunity to blame everything on the one who isn't named, and since that party isn't named, they (or their estate) don't have the chance to appear and defend themself.

In some states, there is a concept called "joint and severable liability" which pretty much means that if a plaintiff cannot collect from one party, they can collect the entire settlement from the rest of the people involved. The court can require one party to pay it all, and that party must then sue the other parties to get those parties to reimburse the first party for what they've paid out to the plaintiff. This was put in as a protection for the plaintiff... for example, if you're a patient in a hospital, and the doctor amputates the wrong leg, so you get a pretty big settlement because life is a lot more difficult without two legs than without one, chances are, while the doctor may be partly (or mostly) responsible, it lets you recover from the hospital, because chances are, the doctor won't have the money to pay the whole settlement. So, what ends up happening is you get your money from the hospital, and then the hospital sues the doctor to get that portion back.

In other states, they just have "several liability." Under several liability, the court has to decide the contribution that each defendant made in causing the injury/death, and holds each individual party responsible for that portion of the damages. "Several liability has two disadvantages for plaintiffs--and conversely, two advantages for defendants--relative to joint-and-several liability. First, it makes plaintiffs bear a higher share of the transaction costs. Instead of pursuing only a selected subset of the alleged injurers (often just the single party with the deepest pockets) and shifting the costs of dealing with the remaining parties to that selected group, plaintiffs must sue everyone from whom they hope to collect damages. Second, if some of the injurers are bankrupt, defunct, or otherwise unable to pay their share of the damages, several liability leaves plaintiffs partially uncompensated, whereas joint-and-several liability compensates them more fully, to the extent that other, deeper-pocketed injurers can be tapped for their fellow injurers' shares." -cbo.gov (edited to add that in the above example about the doctor, if the court finds that the doctor was 80% responsible and the hospital 20%, the plaintiff will get their 20% from the hospital, but if the doctor can only pay 30 or 40%, the plaintiff simply can't recover the remaining 40 or 50%. They can't get it from the hospital because the hospital has paid their share, and they can't get it from the doctor because he just doesn't have it. So, the poor guy with no legs now has a lot less money to help make ends meet while he's in rehab and trying to make a living with a much more severe disability than he would've had if not for the conduct of the doctor and hospital)

So, failing to name everyone can result in significantly reduced, or even zero recovery for the plaintiff, because it allows the defendants an opportunity to pin everything on the person who isn't there, so they (or their estate) can't speak up in their defense. Kinda like the Family Circus cartoons where Dolly, Billy, and PJ are all pointing at the little ghostly "Not-Me" guy.

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She STILL cannot sign away other people's rights. The parents are perfectly entitled to sue and the court is entitled to render a judgment which may take into account the facts that you have stated.



The problem is that most wrongful death actions are undertaken by a deceased's beneficiaries, i.e., by people who received support from the deceased. Usually, parents can only sue if the deceased child is a minor.

You don't expect that the parents received any benefit like a child would. Wrongful death actions have damages that are limited to pecuniary loss from the death, unlike a child or spouse who utilize the deceased's income. You can't receive damages for suffering, grief, sorrow, etc., from the death of a loved one - it'll happen sometime unless you croak first.

So, in a sense, the "rights of the family" that you are talking about might not be recognized "rights." Therefore, it could be a legal "so what?" Of course, I may be wrong - the suit is not California.


My wife is hotter than your wife.

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In some states, any immediate family member, including parents (and grandparents in some cases) can sue. California is different in that it only allows dependants to sue. Some other states just base it on relationship rather than financial dependance. For example, under Georgia law, if there is no surviving spouse or child, the decedent's parents are allowed to sue.

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I love my parents becaue I know for a fact that they would NEVER sue if I died in a crash, even if gross negligence was a factor. How the fuck can ANYONE spend money that was the result of a childs death???

I see these Gerber life commercials, where they offer life insurance for infants???



My daughter has AD&D insurance through my employer. In the event she becomes disabled as a result of an accident, she'll get some amount of money to help her adjust, up to $100,000. If she were to die in an accident while she still has this insurance (college graduation), *I* would get the $100,000. I don't know what I'd do with it...maybe charity or a trust fund for her half-brother or something. I pay a dollar or two a month for her to carry that insurance...does that make me a monster?

Blues,
Dave
"I AM A PROFESSIONAL EXTREME ATHLETE!"
(drink Mountain Dew)

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I pay a dollar or two a month for her to carry that insurance...does that make me a monster?

Blues,
Dave



No...You are not a monster.....

Dont get me wrong, if there was gross negligence, I believe there should be reprocussions. If I had a kid that died in a plane crash, and the mechanic doctored the logs, I want him to go to jail. I do not want any money from the airline, engine mfr., or the airport.

Besides, you are not truly hurting the responsible entities, you are costing their insurance company, which means higher rates for the rest of us.

It should be a crime to bring a lawsuit like this before all the facts are in. NOBODY knows what happened or who is responsible. To sue at this juncture is BS and I would LOVE to meet the people suing face to face and tell them how selfish they are.

These people make me sick. I bet that guy from Austrailia doesnt sue. I hope Im not wrong but I really liked the way he handled himself and the situation.

Mike

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I have insurance on my son for the following reasons:

1) It helps cover costs should anythign happen to hi; and
2) It cannot be canceled or denied for him when he gets older. He can purchase more (to an extent) and it canot be denied, even if he gets cancer, etc. I want to make sure that he is insurable, and the best way to do that is to keep him insured.


My wife is hotter than your wife.

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It should be a crime to bring a lawsuit like this before all the facts are in. NOBODY knows what happened or who is responsible. To sue at this juncture is BS and I would LOVE to meet the people suing face to face and tell them how selfish they are.

Mike



How will all the facts get in?
...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

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Thats cool, and as long as the insurance is reasonable (funeral expenses) that fine. And for sure disability insurance is a good idea for everyone.

I am just sick of everyone thinking that they should be paid when shit happens.

I think it is rediculous how much money we donated to the 9-11 fund, probaly all the victims had insurance and for sure nobody starved. We should have saved that money for Tsunami relief. They needed help WAY more than anyone on 9-11.

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How will all the facts get in?



Well, at least the NTSB report. What if it comes back that some Terrorists shot it down? Certainly no-one names in the suit is responsible.

To sue the dead pilots estate and cost his family money defending someone that might have done no wrong is so reprehensible I cant believe it.

I wouldnt piss in these fuckers mouths if their teeth were on fire!

I hope karma catches up to them.

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So, failing to name everyone can result in significantly reduced, or even zero recovery for the plaintiff

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It makes sense, I just have a real problem with it. I know the family is bitter, but I think the reaction is innappropriate and shows greed more than anything.
As much as I disagree with most lawsuits, I think the noble thing to do would be to wait for the cause to be revealed and fault to be determined. Then name those who were truly negligent in the lawsuit. I'm not in law whatsoever, but have sat jury on a civil suit so maybe this isn't possible. Hypothetically, lets say the engine blew because the dropzone purposely avoided the scheduled inspections to save money. Once that cause is determined, I can't understand how the dropzone could get out of a suit by blaming the engine manufacturer or the pilot.
Seems to me that this stuff only shows they are interested in "how much money can I get?", and not determining who is really responsible.




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It makes sense, I just have a real problem with it. I know the family is bitter, but I think the reaction is innappropriate and shows greed more than anything.
As much as I disagree with most lawsuits, I think the noble thing to do would be to wait for the cause to be revealed and fault to be determined. Then name those who were truly negligent in the lawsuit. I'm not in law whatsoever, but have sat jury on a civil suit so maybe this isn't possible. Hypothetically, lets say the engine blew because the dropzone purposely avoided the scheduled inspections to save money. Once that cause is determined, I can't understand how the dropzone could get out of a suit by blaming the engine manufacturer or the pilot.
Seems to me that this stuff only shows they are interested in "how much money can I get?", and not determining who is really responsible.



Simple. The dropzone says "the pilot was supposed to be responsible for making sure scheduled maintenance is done. He was responsible for checking his aircraft and ensuring the safety of the passengers. We just give him a runway and loan him the plane."

The other issue is that most of the time, the facts do not come out until the lawsuit. So, they don't know who's responsible. Maybe routine maintenance really was part of the pilot's job. Maybe it's in his contract. Maybe the dropzone was supposed to take care of everything. Maybe, the dropzone had a contract with the manufacturer for maintenance. Maybe there was a problem with the aircraft itself. A lot of this won't be known until the completion of the discovery process, and then they can drop names as necessary.

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How will all the facts get in?



Well, at least the NTSB report. What if it comes back that some Terrorists shot it down? Certainly no-one names in the suit is responsible.

To sue the dead pilots estate and cost his family money defending someone that might have done no wrong is so reprehensible I cant believe it.

I wouldnt piss in these fuckers mouths if their teeth were on fire!

I hope karma catches up to them.



At this point, the pilot's family is probably not going to do much of anything until they see the facts. Ditto with the dropzone. They'll sit back, wait for the report, pass the report along to the plaintiffs and then ask the plaintiffs if they are sure they still want to sue. If the plane was shot down by a terrorist, chances are, the suit will be dropped.

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