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Appeals Court Rules Pinnacle, Colgan Not Liable for Crash Costs - Bankruptcy Beat - WSJ


Pinnacle Airlines PNCLQ -5.88% doesn’t have to cover the clean-up and emergency-response costs that a New York county incurred following a fatal 2009 plane crash, an appeals court ruled this week.
New York’s Erie County had sued Pinnacle, its Colgan Air unit and Continental Airlines to recover the costs of emergency and clean-up services it incurred when responding to the February 2009 crash of Flight 3407. The plane, a Continental connection flight operated by Colgan, crashed into a house on its descent to the Buffalo, N.Y., airport, killing all 49 passengers and crew on board as well as one person in the house.
Erie County said in the 2010 lawsuit that it was forced to pay “unprecedented” amounts (the Buffalo News says the price tag was close to $800,000) in overtime pay for police and other first responders following the crash, which it said was caused by the airlines’ “wanton, reckless, negligent and willful conduct.”
A U.S. district court sided with the airlines and denied that the county was owed anything, which the county appealed with the Second Circuit. The suit was argued Feb. 1 and decided March 4.
Writing for a three-judge panel, Circuit Judge Richard C. Wesley said the court agreed with the lower court’s “well-reasoned” conclusion that public funds spent on governmental functions generally can’t be passed off to someone else. The county had said the crash costs were an exception to this rule, which the circuit court denied.
“In other words, public services provided in response to an emergency are just that–public services–and therefore are not subject to reimbursement,” Judge Wesley wrote.
Attorney Jim Duggan of Duggan & Pawlowski represented the county. Reached Thursday, he said was disappointed with the circuit court’s ruling.
“When we started this case, we knew it was an uphill battle given the free public services doctrine defense that we knew Colgan would put up to resist the recovery claim,” he said. “We’re glad we made the effort and we respect the court’s ruling, although we disagree with it.”
Pinnacle is currently under Chapter 11 protection. Its creditors were just cleared to vote on its bankruptcy-exit plan, which would see Delta Air Lines DAL -1.32%—now Pinnacle’s sole customer—take ownership of the regional carrier.

ShyGuy

I agree with the court. Public services like these are paid for with local/state taxes and is theoretically suppose to cover labor and overtime fees for their own employees. It would set a bad precedent if public service officials could sue you for money spent everytime they help you (police, fire).

This part:
Translation:
"We knew we wouldn't win, because there's a free public services DOCTRINE already in place, but anything that gets me a few more hours of legal fees is worth it..."

Sata 4000 RP

Many jurisdictions across the country charge you when they send Fire or EMS out to your house. However if this isn't one of those jurisdictions, I can see why they ruled against the county.

lolwut

Personally, I'd love to see Colgan / Pinnacle / Continental lose every single court case thrown at them due to this crash, but I agree with this one.

It'd be a bad precedent to set for something that wasn't an directly intentional act. (Of course, hiring inept pilots that'll work for pennies and putting them through a cheap bare bones training program was absolutely intentional, but thats complicating matters here)

pitch mode

Next time pay the police/firemen/county workers for only the time they spend acitvely doing their job like pilots only getting paid when the door is closed and the brake is released. Even better,the county can farm out those services to lower paid police/firemen(women). The lower paid police/firefighters will not have the benefits that the county ones do. Some police/firefighters may lose their job,but they can still work through the jobs for squad cars/fire trucks program.

Saabs

Lol wut?!?

Semaphore Sam

The company who puts its name on an aircraft, and on the ticket, should bear all costs, both public and private, when the results of their intrigues turn out bad. Shortcomings in Mx, Pilots (training, work conditions, fatigue, etc) should be the responsibility of the company on the outside of the aircraft...CONTINENTAL. The word 'connection' means very little to the public. Also, the lawyers and CEO's who set up this crazy system of regionals who fly for mainlines, are paid by mainlines, and result in crashes, etc, based on this 'low-cost' regime, should be held PERSONALLY liable. There should be a rule..."Put your name on the aircraft/ticket, you own the results..." That this is not the case shows how corrupt corporate America now is.

block30

Get into Trouble Outdoors -- Who Pays for the Rescue? - TIME


This article seemed somewhat pertinent...

JamesNoBrakes

Yep. One day a lawyer is going to get this right IMO. If whatever major airline wants to put their name on the aircraft, they should be responsible. There's a big push for this in the FAA with 135 operators and others, but unfortunately the 121s have the ability to push back on their congressmen still.

To some extent some of this is being addressed with SMS, by making an executive responsible, but I think the corporations will make it inneffective somehow, and the operators that need these things the most are usually the ones that do not/can not do it.

FlyJSH

That sounds nice, but where does it end? Main line hires regional X. Regional X flies flies the new Em-bardier One-Seventy-Nine-Hundred equipped with the SuperSnazy FMS loaded with data provided by Mappesen. An X plane flies into the side of a mountain because Mappesen had a typo on an MEA. REALISTICALLY (forgetting that everyone including Badyear, who made the tires will be sued) realistically, shoud the mainline be responsible?

Yeah, it sounds silly, but in our litigious society, it isn't far from the truth.