American Airlines Faces Lawsuit Over Fatal Crash, But Is Company To Blame?

All comments from non-attorneys should be summarily ignored.

In a modern civil society, we do want operators to assess comprehensively the risks of their operation. If this suit causes American or any other airline to say hey wait - let's rethink our operations at this airport because it's congested and risky - that benefits the public at large.

Yes, AA should be sued. It was their plane that crashed. If they feel they should be dismissed from the lawsuit, they can argue that in court and, if they prevail, the suit can continue against the federal defendants. Not sure why the plaintiffs wouldn't be expected to initially bring suit against all parties involved, including AA.

I know this blog has an international audience, and I know many countries are not as litigious as the United States.

May I submit that the volume of litigation in the United States is a good thing.

Not sure why the plaintiffs wouldn't be expected to initially bring suit against all parties involved, including AA.

Because the layperson who doesn't know the first thing about law in the United States will fixate on the fact the AA plane was hit (passive voice, implying to the layperson absolution of responsibility).

Filing a lawsuit and winning a lawsuit are 2 different things. You sue ALL parties involved and then you see who settles or who wants to fight and you adjust accordingly. AA may not want to pursue this and they settle for 50 mil. Who knows.

Until you are asked to sit on the jury, don't make up your mind that AA was not at least 1% at fault, because you don't know whether the Trump administration lawyers are going to use that as a defense. The American legal system often requires all the parties potentially at fault to be called into court, because some of them are likely to be pointing fingers at others, anyway.

Could the AA pilots have rejected the last-minute change of runway, telling ATC that "our company doesn't allow such diversions and the last ten times you asked for that procedure a go-around was allowed" ? Until the final report is issued -- and maybe, not even then -- we don't know all the facts. That is the purpose of the trial.

The claim against AA comes down to an issue of duty. Does AA have a duty not to operate from airports that have high risk factors, but are open for commercial traffic and approved by FAA? If you answer that question “yes”, then you would not only close DCA to all commercial traffic, but also SAN, MDW, LGA, BUR, LAX, and a lot of other airports that have high risk factors. I personally think the answer to this is clearly “no”, and AA will likely be dismissed at an early stage. If this kind of duty existed in the US legal system, then drivers would be liable for accidents they didn’t cause because they chose a crowded, congested highway.

The arguments presented here against aa is quite understandable and I actually didn't think like them before reading and now I feel like aa should be accountable at least to a certain degree. I assume many juries feel the same way. In any case I think it is wiser to include all parties involved in the initial suit but some will be dropped in the process ..

This is what lawyers (and cops, for that matter) do - they throw a whole lot of BS at the wall, and hope some of it sticks. Fortunately judges are well aware of this strategy, as most of them used it when they were attorneys.

If you're flying in controlled airspace and obeying ATC directions to the letter, it's reasonable to assume that ATC is keeping other aircraft out of your way. As you say, there are very many airports around the world that would have to close immediately if judged by that standard. Insanely busy airspace around cities like NY and London would have to close completely. It's simply an unviable claim.

If they’re gonna succeed in a lawsuit, they’re gonna have to show that conducting an airlines business is so inherently dangerous that the crash rises to a strict liability tort. If they’re arguing AA is negligent here, they’re probably gonna lose that argument given that the pilots were following ATC orders and are bound by FAA regulations to do so unless they get permission from ATC to deviate or in an emergency situation. They obviously didn’t see the helicopter (and wouldn’t have been expected to, given the flight path of the helicopter), so any negligence argument is gonna fail.

If the plaintiffs can make a compelling enough argument that AA bears responsibility for the crash simply by the nature of conducting a business that is inherently dangerous, the plaintiffs could win their strict liability tort lawsuit. Unfortunately I have no legal background, so idk if that’s even remotely possible or if there’s any sort of precedence to suggest to the contrary.

For lawyers.

I don’t think it makes sense to go down the path of listing dangerous airports. That’s obviously pretty subjective. JFK? SFO? Any major airport with crossing runways or close parallel runways? An uncontrolled field with commercial operations. They’re all somewhat dangerous to one degree or another for different reasons.

Assumption of risk is a defense to strict liability. Risk is acknowledged and accepted in the terms of airline tickets. Had someone in a boat on the Potomac been injured by debris, they might have a strict liability case.

This mentality will shut down the economy and leave everyone worse off.
The roads are far more dangerous than the skies. With this logic, nobody should leave their house.

As this sort of rot sets in, empires crumble

How to dismiss every jury for prejudice.

Did you know anyone who was severely delayed or lost their bags by American.

That troll is no lawyer AlanZ …. it used to post as Arps, pretending to be a lawyer using that login too.

Arps …. you are fooling nobody with your pretence that you know anything more about American Law than the average Joe Soap on the streets.

In that case Arps …. you have just shut yourself down young-son-O’me-lad ….

Not a lawyer, but Id suspect that suing AA might unlock additional insurance or other avenues on which the plaintiffs can collect damages.