Someone in another thread mentioned it, so I found this article on Reuters and decided I may as well start the thread.


http://today.reuters.com/news/articl...IR-LAWSUIT.XML

The plantiffs are claiming their loved one suffered "consious pain". How can that be proven??? And this whole lawyers advertising thing needs to be stopped (in the same way that we banned tobacco ads).

 

I just heard about this. The family is suing Comair because 1. Comair failed to assure that the plane had enough speed to take off and 2. Comair failed to assure that the plane took off on the legal runway. I guess it's legal terminology because when they say Comair I'm assuming they are talking about the pilots that represent the company.

 

While I agree that this accident probably warrants legal action on behalf of the families, I question the timing of the lawsuits. The fact that families and lawyers are filing for damages before funeral arrangements have been completed says something about the "money hunger" that seems to be running rampant.

And lawyers wonder why the public paints them as ambulance chasers.

 

I don't know all that much about Comair's financial stability, its turnover or anything much else about its current situation, but this surely seems to be something which could put the whole company out of business. Living in the age of litigation as we do, and judging by the money paid out in compensation for people even in cases where there were no fatalities, I just don't see how the company could stand up to the size of the hit they are about to take and come out the other side. I feel terrible for the hardworking folks who are employees of the company but surely this is just the first of many lawsuits which will be filed by relatives of deceased passengers.
I'd like to hear someone from Comair's view on this, because admittedly I don't know much of what goes on at that company.

 

I'm sure that anybody in the know about how this could affect comair doesn't have anything to say about it...

That said, odds are that any settlements that are paid out won't come out of company coffers, but more likely out of insurance company pockets.

I remember talking with a rep from the insurance company that provided hull loss and liability coverage for ACA once. He told me that after an accident, the insurance company did two things within the first 48-72 hours... first was to cut a check to the company or leasing company for the insured value of the hull. Second was to cut checks in the amount $15,000 to the families of victims to use how they saw fit.

Don't know what Comair's coverage limit is, but I'm willing to bet it's pretty high (But perhaps still not high enough to cover a gross negligence award). The company that I fly for now carries around a $500 million dollar liability policy and we only fly a 7 passenger Citation.

48 fatalities (non-flight crew) x $15 million dollar settlements = $720,000,000.

 

The figure bandied about a few years ago was that a fatal accident would cost an airline about $1+ Billion in litigation, settlement and lost revenue.

 

I was thinking the same thing. Pathetic.

 

The sad thing is that people don't think about who that really affects.....everyday people that had nothing to do with this. They just want their grubby little hands on some "compensation". Well guess what? No amount of money will bring a loved one back. The whole thing just makes me sick to my stomach really. My blood pressure goes up just reading about stuff like this.

 

Think of how much better our world would be without lawsuits!!

 

FP- here we go again. I'm no fan of attorneys or the litigious society we live in.

Fact- 49 people died because an aircraft took off on the wrong runway.

Although we know what happened, let's leave why that happened alone. The families of the victims should shrug and go "Oh well!" Bulls... If someone backed into your car and caused you damages, would any reasonable person say, "no amount of money can make it right..so oh well.." I don't think we can expect that from someone who has lost a relative. If you are able to look any of these relatives in the eye and say, "you are a money grubbing individual who is impacting thousands of other people...", fine go ahead.

Bottom line- someone or more probably several someones share responsibilty. This will hopefully come to light during the investigation. Perhaps this crash, through the economic cost of this lawsuit will drive additional safety equipment. From what I've read (no I don't know), incidents like these are not entirely uncommon. But there are cockpit techniques and tools to help prevent it.

Last thought- the sleazeballs who advertise on Google, TV and elsewhere are part of the reason that attorneys have a bad name. But I gaurantee you, when you need or want one, you'll want a good one.