Legal News

Pre-Gaming the Likely-To-Come Air France Crash Litigation

By Chris Herring

Investigators are still struggling to put together what happened to the Air France flight that went down off the coast of Brazil earlier this month. For now, there are more unknowns than knowns — but here’s a near certainty: there will be lawsuits.

A threshold issue — before the question of whom to sue, necessarily — is where to sue. It’s anything but clear cut. French plane took off from Brazil, was bound for Paris and landed in the Atlantic. The 228 people on board represented 30 different countries. Click here for the Bloomberg story on the issue.

Legal experts seem torn over the issue. Some think cases should be in tried in France, since the airline and destination were both French. One expert says Brazilian victims’ cases should be heard in Brazil. Another argues that U.S. courts are is best at getting to the bottom of complicated issues and that the U.S. would be the best venue for hearings.

At any rate, the question of how the crash occurred is still unknown. The black box, which is often used to determine the cause of a crash has eluded rescue teams, and as of last week just 41 of the 228 people on board had been found. Partly for those reasons, it’s unclear when the claims will be paid out or who will pay them.

Le Monde, the French newspaper of record, reported that a group of French insurance companies have already begun projecting how much they might have to pay in claims — in the ballpark of $330 million. The story says that the number would likely more than double if the cases go to court.

The LB posted last week about AIG’s reluctance to pay for damages stemming from the plane that landed in the Hudson River. In that case, the NYT story said, “those familiar with industry practices said it would be many months before the issue of liability was resolved.”

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on June 15, 2009 (boomark / email).