Lawyer who sued airlines crashes plane

The Washington Times ^ | July 17, 2006 | Unk

[OldCorps]

An attorney specializing in suits related to aviation disasters has died after crashing his vintage plane at the Oregon International Airshow. Robert Guilford, 73, crashed his plane shortly after taking off Sunday at the airshow, the Portland (Ore.) Oregonian reported Monday. Guilford, a former federal prosecutor, was a licensed pilot and vintage airplane expert who worked at California law firm Baum Hedlund, which handles serious personal injury and wrongful death cases related to commercial transportation accidents, the Oregonian reported. The law firm was employed in the cases of more than 55 airline crashes, including the 1996 wreck of TWA Flight 800 near East Moriches N.Y., and the crash of an Egypt Air flight near Nantucket, Mass., in 1999.

[kilowhskey]

You are right about the Corsair being labeled by the Japanese as "whistling death." One cannot tell by the text of the article whether the error was the son's or the journalist's.

[Centurion2000]

I think they call this schadenfreude.

[RightOnline]

Dang. Now......he must sue himself in absentia.

[HereInTheHeartland]

"What are your thoughts about this?"

My thoughts are: Was the plane damaged badly?

[TheRedSoxWinThePennant]

Bob was heading home from an Oregon air show in his beloved Hawker Hunter Mk. 58 swept-wing British Jet Fighter,

It is Ironic. I dont think he deserved death for his profession as much as I loathe it. But what a cool toy. I am willing to bet if he had to go, he wanted to be in that aircraft.

[nicollo]

In the summer of 1965, several months before Ralph Nader's infamous book on the auto industry came out, at a convention at Miami Beach, the Trial Attorney association discussed strategies for building larger judgments and finding deeper pockets. They displayed a Corvair at the Fontainebleau Hotel and discussed how to go about suing GM. This included such strategies as waiting for new models to come out with safety improvements then suing for negligence in accidents involving older model cars that didn't have those improvements.

While these "legal entrepreneurs" discussed autos, they also put together deliberate strategies for going after aviation. It's rather sickening, if honest. PDF copy of a contemporaneous NY Times article on it: here. (**Note: copyright material for "educational purposes only"**)

[sig226]

The case was actually much worse than that. The pilot removed the front seat to install a camera. The owner of the airport got wind of this and forbade the pilot to take off. Pilot ignored him. The airport owner parked his van across the runway to keep the airport closed. Mr. Cleveland tried to take off anyway. The resulting crash resulted in head injuries to Cleveland, blamed on Piper because the Cub didn't have a shoulder harness retrofit for the rear sight.

I think the head injuries may have made Cleveland more intelligent, the jury disagreed.

IIRC, there was also a series of lawsuits over Piper's last design - the Malibu. Several of them crashed and I think the NTSB still has not determined a cause, but the planes were very sophisticated, and some of the wrecks were found on the LORAN lines in the flight plan.

I recall from AOPA Pilot and Flying that the things were navigating until they hit the ground, and no cause could be determined, so the lawyers said it was the plane's fault.

[Dead Dog]

I'd been taught that it is more like 50%.

Either way, The old Hawker Hunter did exactly what it was built to do. Destroy the enemies of freedom. I don't have much sympathy for the dude.

In 1985 there were 800K pilots in the US, now there are 400K. Jackasses like this dude, and the families he represented have done more than destroyed GA, but they've come close to destroying inovation and manufacturing in this country. Without both, we are nothing.

[mr_hammer]

"I thought it was the Corsair that was call whistling death, never heard this about the mustang."

Me too, the P-51 has the cooling system below the cockpit. Wonder if some AP writer got their facts balled up?

[Yo-Yo]

Corsairs have oil coolers in the wing roots, but I don't think Mustangs do. I think you're correct in that either the reporter or the son got some fact wrong.

[GBA]

"He said actor Tom Cruise saw his father's P-51 hangar at Van Nuys Airport and told airport officials he would pay double to lease it. "My dad had to move his plane so Tom Cruise could take his hangar," Guilford said."

If people want to hate someone, I present Tom Cruise.

[Polyxene]

Payback really is a b!tch!

[bill1952]

The plane was equipped w/ ejection seat and chutes?

[demkicker]

I'm torn between ironic laughter, and gratitude to the Angel of Misfortune.

I couldn't have said it better!

[MPJackal]

That is what I heard. But he chose to try and land it in an open field that was just beyond the house and a row of trees.

[EveningStar]

Born in Cleveland, Ohio, on April 14, 1933, Guilford graduated with honors from the University of Virginia with a bachelor's in philosophy. He then earned his law degree from Harvard Law School in 1958. He obtained his pilot's license in 1961 and added commercial and instrument ratings in 1970.

Few people are as successful as Guilford in merging career and passion. In his practice with Baum Hedlund Attorneys, the Los Angeles law firm he joined in 1992, Guilford specialized in cases involving aviation accidents.

Balancing his membership in the State Bar of California, Guilford was also enrolled in the Lawyer-Pilots Bar Association, the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association and the Experimental Aircraft Association.

He also was co-founder of the Warbirds of America, an international organization devoted to the preservation of military aircraft. Michael Baum, senior partner of Baum Hedlund, recalls Guilford would fly off to air shows four or five times each year. "Whenever there was an airshow with vintage aircraft, he would go," Baum said. "It was his big hobby."

"Bob had a huge knowledge of aircraft and aircraft parts," Baum continued. "Whenever he was not working here, he devoted his time to tinkering with his military aircraft and taking them to shows."

-----

Baum Hedlund Attorneys serve(d) as members of the following Commerical Aviation Plaintiffs' Steering/Executive Committees and Trial Teams:

* Trial Team Member, 2003, Airborne Charter Inc./Avjet, Gulfstream Crash, Aspen, Colorado, 2001
* Plaintiffs' Steering Committee, MDL 1448, American Airlines 587 Crash, Belle Harbor (Queens), New York, 2001
* Plaintiffs' Executive Committee, September 11, 2001 Tort Litigation
-- o American Airlines Flight 11, World Trade Center, northern tower, New York, New York
-- o United Airlines Flight 175, World Trade Center, southern tower, New York, New York
-- o American Airlines Flight 77, Pentagon, Arlington, Virginia
-- o United Airlines Flight 93, near Shanksville, Pennsylvania
* Plaintiffs' Steering Committee, MDL 1394, Singapore Airlines SQ 006 Crash at Taipei, Taiwan, 2000
* Lead Counsel for Coordinated Discovery Cases, Southwest Airlines Flight 1455 accident, Burbank, California, 2000
* Plaintiffs' Steering Committee, MDL 00-1343-CAL, Alaska Airlines Crash, off Point Mugu, California, 2000
* Plaintiffs' Steering Committee Atlantic Southeast Airlines Crash, near Carrollton, Georgia, 1995
* Trial Team Member, MDL 1041, USAir 1016 Aircrash of Charlotte, North Carolina, 1994
* Plaintiffs' Steering Committee, MDL 1041, USAir 1016 Aircrash of Charlotte, North Carolina, 1994
* Plaintiff Steering Committee, Illinois State Court Proceedings for USAir 427 Aircrash near Aliquippa, Pennsylvania, 1994
* Plaintiffs' Steering Committee, Perris Skydivers Crash, Perris, California, 1992
* Plaintiffs' Steering Committee, MDL 891, Northwest Airlines Crash, Detroit, 1990
* Trial Team Member, United Airlines Crash, Sioux City, Iowa, 1989
* Plaintiffs' Steering Committee, MDL 817, United Airlines Crash, Sioux City, Iowa, 1989

[Mamzelle]

Did he hurt anything on the ground? Any injuries or property damage or mental anguish?

[Mamzelle]

re: People sleep in beds of their own making...if he put people out of business due to lawyerly sleight of hand or emotional manipulation of juries for big money amounts, then there are certain to be people who lost their livelihood because of him. )))

I wonder how many pilots here on FR have had their hobby made completely unaffordable through insurance increases and increased regulation because of this "pro-aviation" lawyer? There's heaps and heaps of irony in this story and on this thread.

I also notice there's not too much concern for all the damage he did crashing in a neighborhood because he had too much "courage" to bail...

[rlmorel]

Heck, I am probably one of those. I would like to get my pilot's license, but it is a rich person's hobby now, for the most part. How much has litigation driven those costs up is a good question.

[EveningStar]

Good post. Thank you.