Fort Worth Injury Lawyer Blog

Two lawsuits have been recently filed in federal court in San Antonio, Texas against Dyn Corp’s Forth Worth based aviation services division as a result of the 2007 army helicopter crash that killed six military members. The helicopter crash occurred near an airbase in Aviano, Italy. The helicopter was one of Army’s H–60 Black Hawk helicopters and Dyn Corp was in charge of maintenance for the helicopter.

The lawsuits were filed by lawyers based in Michigan, New York, California and San Antonio. That group of lawyers represents the survivors of five of the six victims killed in the crash. The lawsuits will be defended on behalf of Dyn Corp by the Fort Worth law firm of Brown, Dean, Wiseman, Proctor, Hart & Howell.

The wrongful death lawsuits allege that Dyn Corp, through its employees, improperly removed, serviced and reinstalled critical flight-controlled components of the helicopter in early 2007. The lawsuit alleges that Dyn Corp knew of problems with the components based upon prior complaints, but did nothing to remedy the situation.

Dyn Corp employs about 800 full and part-time employees at its Aviation Services Division at Alliance Airport in North Fort Worth.

This 2007 crash was a tragic accident which gained international attention. It will be interesting to see what develops in the course of the litigation. I have no idea if the allegations against Dyn Corp are true. However, if they are true, it is a real tragedy that this helicopter crash could have been prevented.

Information and commentary provided by Dallas Fort Worth Injury Attorney Mark A. Anderson, who can be contacted at 817 294 1900 or at www.maafirm.com.

I came across a story today on the Internet that I found very interesting. As reported in law.com, a California lawyer has been disbarred for his conduct on a jury panel. The lawyer, Francis Fahy, was one of 12 jurors in a medical malpractice case tried in San Francisco in 2004. Medical malpractice cases generally take a long time to try, and this one was going on for nearly a month, including ten days of deliberations, when Fahy changed his vote to break a deadlock. At the time, there was an 8-4 deadlock in favor of the doctor who had been accused of negligence while performing a laser eye surgery. Apparently during the deliberations, Fahy had felt that the doctor had been negligent, but decided to change his vote because the long trial was hurting his law practice. With his changed vote, the jury was finally able to render a verdict in favor of the doctor and the trial was over.

After the trial, one of the jurors brought the vote change to the attention of the judge, who then inquired as to Attorney Fahy. In response, Fahy said that he had only acted within the court’s instructions and trial evidence. When the matter was turned over to the California State Bar, an investigation came to the “inescapable” conclusion that Fahy had violated his duties as a juror. As such, they disbarred him, which means he is no longer eligible to practice law in California. He cannot resume practice in law until he undergoes a formal reinstatement proceeding that proves by clear and convincing evidence that he has been rehabilitated, that he has the appropriate moral fitness and he has retained the ability to practice law.

As a trial lawyer, you always wonder how jurors come to their conclusions. Sometimes I have been very puzzled by a jury’s decision. You always wonder what goes on behind closed doors. Sometimes certain jurors will tell you things after the trial that make you very uneasy. Reading this story, it makes me wonder how many people reach a decision just to hurry the trial process along. I hope this is an isolated incident and it doesn’t happen very much. But you have to wonder.

This information provided by Fort Worth personal injury attorney Mark A. Anderson. Contact information: 817 294 1900 or contact Mark A. Anderson Online. Cases handled include car accidents, construction accidents and defective product claims, and other personal injury actions.

Back in 2003, the Texas legislature passed a horrible law which capped the damages recoverable in medical malpractice cases. An amendment to the Texas Constitution was also passed in which voters of this Texas narrowly gave approval for this law. Is this cap on damages constitutional? The Texas Supreme Court has not ruled on it yet, as it takes time for “new law” malpractice cases to be filed, worked up through expensive discovery, tried before a jury and then appealed. The Texas Supreme Curt actually had a chance to hear the arguments on whether the caps are constitutional, but this week issued an Order by which they denied hearing the case. The case was actually appealed by the side which is in favor of the caps. That sounds unusual—because it is. Usually you see the folks who are challenging the caps to bring the appeal, but this time is brought on a direct appeal (skipping the appellate courts) by the Texas Hospital Association and the Texas Medical Association.

So we will have to wait and see whether the Texas Supreme Court upholds the constitutionality of this bad law. Since this Court is very pro-business and has an abysmal record of voting against the claims brought by the injured parties, I think we all know how they will eventually rule.

So why is this law so bad? Well, just about every attorney who used to handle medical malpractice claims no longer takes them because the damages are so limited that is just does not make economic sense to pursue a case. The cases are very expensive to handle and when the eventual recovery is so limited, then it just makes better sense for the injury attorney to quit taking those types of cases. At the Anderson Law Firm, we stopped handling these types of cases and routinely turn down the opportunity to represent victims of medical malpractice. The result is that injured parties or their families end up not being able to find a lawyer to take their case. So, unfortunately, most instances of true malpractice just end up not being pursued.

In 2003, five bus passengers were killed when a bus headed to Dallas from Temple crashed on I35. The bus accident occured when the bus driver lost control of the bus in the rain and crossed the median near Hewitt, Texas, slamming into a southbound Chevrolet Suburban. Two passengers of the Suburban were killed and additional passengers of the bus were injured.

A wrongful death lawsuit was brought in Waco against Motor Coach Industries, an Illinois company which assembled the bus. In 2005, the case went to trial and a jury ruled that the crash victims should receive $17.5 million dollars, finding that the bus was defective as it had no seatbelts. Of course, the bus company appealed.

This week the 10th Court of Appeals, based in Waco, overturned the jury’s decision. The main reason for the reversal was that the appellate court believed that the trial judge should have asked the jury whether the bus driver or the charter bus company should share in responsibility. One of the three appellate justices also said the jury’s verdict should have been thrown out as federal law governing seatbelts “preempts” the victim’s ability to pursue that type of claim.

It is a shame that these victims’ claims have to go back and start over. The question of which parties’ conduct the jury considers is an important part of all injury cases where more than one party may be responsible. Who the trial judge ultimately “submits” to the jury depends on many things, including the requests made by the various parties’ attorneys and the type of claims being asserted. What is troubling here is the “preemption” argument asserted by the dissenting justice. It seems like federal preemption arguments are being increasingly relied upon by appellate courts to throw out plaintiffs claims. So much for state rights and the decision of juries.

The Houston, Texas jury has spoken and has rejected the claim brought by a Continental Airlines flight attendant against mega church pastor Victoria Osteen. At the beginning of the trial, I noted that the trial should be interesting and that the plaintiff better have good evidence of damages. After reading about the trial for a week, it is clear that damages weren’t the only problem faced by the plaintiff. The evidence apparently was overwhelming that no assault occurred. Besides Mrs. Osteen, other passengers and even Continental co-employees all testified that no assault occurred.

At the start of the trial, I had assumed that there would be better evidence presented of an assault. I based that assumption on the fact that the FAA had fined, and Mrs. Osteen had paid, a $3,000 fine as a result of the incident. I guess I assumed that the fine would have been challenged, and won, had no assault occurred. Maybe the plaintiff’s lawyer made the same assumption and put all his eggs in that basket.

These types of cases aren’t representative of the cases tried at courthouses around Texas, but they are the ones that get all the press. This case highlights the need for lawyers to get all the facts they can before they pursue a case this far. If a case is a swearing match between the participants, but all the witnesses favor one side, that side will win every time. The juries usually get it right.

I wonder who will star in the next “celebrity” lawsuit? Stay tuned.

(Photo courtesy of ABCnews.com)

Today, the New York Times had an article on a soon to be released study which analyzes the decision to settle of go to trial. The study, which will be published in the Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, is based on over 2,000 cases which have recently gone to trial. It found that plaintiffs made the wrong decision to proceed to trial in 61% of the cases and that the average difference between the rejected pre-trial offer and the final award averaged $43,000. On the other hand, the study found that the defendant was wrong to go to trial in 24% of the cases, but the consequences were much worse, as the difference between the rejected offer and the final award averaged $1,140,000. The study found that in 15% of the cases both sides were right to go to trial, which means the defendant paid less than the plaintiff wanted but the plaintiff was awarded more than the amount of money offered by the defendant.

So, what does this study tell us? In my opinion, very little. First of all, each case is different and to base a settlement decision on a study is flawed reasoning. Each litigant must rely in large part on the advice of their attorney. The parties have to hope they have retained an experienced litigator who fully understands their case. The attorney must understand the good and the bad parts of the particular case, and believe me: all cases have strengths and weaknesses. Many factors go into a case evaluation: witness credibility, evidentiary evaluation, venue considerations (how do juries in your locale look at your particular case) and the tendencies of the particular judge hearing the case. These are just a few of the many, many things an experienced litigator must take into account in coming up with his or her recommendation on whether to settle the case or to pitch it to a jury.

Another problem with studies such as this is they do not take into consideration the settlement discussions of the parties. Sometimes one side or the other makes no reasonable attempt to get the matter resolved. If the plaintiff hangs the fruit too high, so to speak, then the defendant is not inclined to make a reasonable offer as it will be thought of as useless. Or if the defendant only is offering a token amount when the case is worth much more, then the plaintiff will not be inclined to make a demand in the “range of value.” So how does a case get productive negotiations going? Usually it takes lawyers on both sides who understand the case and it usually takes a good mediator who will take the time to understand the case and help the parties see if a settlement can be reached. The statistics here in Texas show that most cases settle at mediation or soon thereafter.

This study reinforces two things I already knew. One, the parties must make sure they hire the right kind of lawyer for their case, which usually means an experienced specialist in the field that their case involves. The other thing that this study reinforces is that the lawyer needs to make sure he or she does everything they can to properly evaluate the case and prepare it for trial. If the attorney does their job properly, then there is a good chance the value of the case will be properly targeted. And if it settles and that is what the client wants, then that is good—and if it goes to trial, the attorney will be ready to put on the best case possible

A civil assault case pending in Houston against Victoria Osteen is set for trial this week.  Mrs. Osteen is the co-pastor of Houston’s Lakewood Church and the wife of Joel Osteen, well known author and her co-pastor.  The facts as contained in the FAA report on the incident are rather bizarre: apparently Victoria was upset over her dirty seat in the first class section on a flight to Vail back in 2005.  According to the report, after she complained about the seat, she followed a flight attendant to the cockpit when she pushed and elbowed another flight attendant in an attempt to get to the cockpit.  The FAA fined the brawling pastor $3,000 for interfering with a crew member during flight.

Assault cases are usually only found in criminal courts.  It is extremely unusual to find one in the civil system—where the relief sought is compensation.  I frequently receive calls from folks who were “beat up” or otherwise assaulted.  Why do I not take these cases?  The main reason is there is no way to ever obtain any monetary compensation for my client.  Insurance policies do not cover “intentional acts”—which is just what an assault is.  And most folks do not have the financial means to pay a judgment against them.  Sometimes the injured party might be eligible to receive some compensation through the Crime Victims’ Compensation Program, and I advise them of that possibility.  So what makes the Victoria Osteen case the exception to the rule?  She has money!  She has hired a well known attorney (who does not come cheap, I assume) and is prepared to fight this case.  It should be a very interesting trial, although the facts are not that interesting.  If true, Mrs. Osteen should know better than to act like that.  I have no idea about the alleged injuries by the plaintiff, but the better have some good evidence or she will look like she is being greedy suing the wealthy pastor.  All in all, this is not your typical case.