Posted on 07/17/2006 1:31:52 PM PDT by OldCorps
LOL
It is criminal when any business is driven out of business due to bogus lawsuits. However, to say a business is never at fault is unrealistic also. My hubby is a mechanical engineer and can't believe the incompetence of some of the design groups he has had contact with. I would much rather have a lawyer that has a clue about the actual workings of a plane than one who can channel the thoughts of accident victims.
Some sort of poetic justice?
Well, one thing is certain. There is no doubt whatsoever where this guy got his money to partake in such an expensive hobby.
High end litigation, high end litigation, and more of the same.
Sure, there is boatloads of irony here (not boatloads of lawyers) but the bottom line is that flying those kinds of planes does present certain hazards,which he freely accepted.
He sounds like he did some good work with Warbirds of America, an organization that I used to have a membership in, although I have to admit they seemed kind of clannish and snobbish, but I guess I expect as much from that kind of organization and it is no foul.
Sorry for him and his family, but I know there are some who won't shed any tears for him. 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. Not to say they are justified or unjustified, but we all know of plenty of cases of companies that went under due to litigation, and not always just litigation.
A good start!!
"Lol, maybe his estate could sue him for wreckless negligence...."
Actually, his estate/firm will likely sue every manufacturer of every part, down to screws and paint, and every one who ever turned a screw on the airplane. No kidding.
For the record, I didn't say "a business is never at fault";
I just mentioned a fine aviation firm that was de facto forced out of business, solely due to predatory lawsuits.
Intelectual honosty has no place in litigation, not for this SOB.
Talk about karma coming back to haunt you!
Sorry, didn't mean to imply that you did.
Piper had a policy of self-insuring and fighting every junk lawsuit* tooth and nail rather than settling to avoid litigation. This policy worked well for them for a while, but IIRC they were finally forced under after losing a case.
I'm not certain, but I believe the case that bankrupted them was one in which a pilot was landing a Piper Cub (which had been designed and built many decades prior and was for years one of the most popular general aviation planes) on a runway. For reasons I don't remember, someone on the ground wanted to prevent the pilot from landing, and drove a tractor onto the runway intentionally to prevent the pilot from landing. The pilot landed and hit the tractor, and he (or his estate; don't recall whether he lived) sued the tractor driver and Piper. The crash was entirely the fault of the malicious tractor driver, of course, but the jury found him only 99% at fault, and Piper 1% at fault because their design (like every other taildragger ever made) hindered forward visibility in a landing attitude. Because of joint and several liability, when the tractor driver (who presumably had few or no assets) couldn't pay his 99% of the large judgment, Piper had to make up the difference. Fortunately, the name and manufacture has since been revived as The New Piper Aircraft Company. To be honest, I think Reagan's overhaul of the tax system (not that I disagree with it) had as much as or more to do with the downfall of general aviation manufacturing than excessive litigation, but Piper's initial downfall was directly attributable to being found slightly at fault and then having to pay the whole judgment.
*-By junk lawsuits, I mean those where the crash is clearly and completely pilot error and/or the aircraft or part in question was manufactured many, many years ago and met the standards at the time but wore out or had its design superceded in the intervening years. Not all aviation lawsuits are such, but IMHO many are.
That sounds right. I heard they got nailed after somebody ran out of fuel... What's ironic, you oughtta hear lawyers bitch about insurance premiums. Talk about nerve.
LOL
"Sometimes God uses a bankshot."
Regards,
TS
I think it's a waste of a damn fine British warbird.
This story reminds me of something that happened at an airshow in Columbia, SC three years back. There was a guy there, Joe Tobul, that had a beautifully restored Korean War-era F4U-4 Corsair named "Korean War Hero." On the second day of the show, Tobul was in formation with three T-6 Texans (one of which was piloted by his grandson) when the engine on his Corsair cut out. He tried to make it back to the airport but he ended up riding the plane down into a backyard about a mile away, steering it away from houses as best he could the entire time. He died in the crash. Of course, he couldn't eject from the Corsair, but he could've bailed out.
It's a shame, but the guy had to know the risks. Airplanes of that vintage are tempremental at best. And, yes, with this guy being an aviation litigation specialist, cutting through the irony here would dull a carbide-tipped chainsaw.
}:-)4
Here is a story with a photograph of Guilford and his plane, pre-accident of course.
http://aero-news.net/index.cfm?ContentBlockID=de9afbf5-4b94-437d-91c0-42945238fc3c&
That link will time out in a few days but this is a permanent one:
http://www.aero-news.net/news/sport.cfm?ContentBlockID=de9afbf5-4b94-437d-91c0-42945238fc3c&Dynamic=1
I can't stand ambulance-chasing trial lawyers, but my dislike for the type falls well short of wishing any of them a violent, fiery death. As far as some of his back caselog is concerned, well, it would be too much to expect for the victims' familes of TWA800 to not sue; their family members died due to an imperfectly-understood defect in the design, manufacture, maintenance and operation of that aircraft.
Someone mentioned Piper being forced out of business by lawsuits. It's been back in business for years as a new corporation. A bill the Republican congress force-fed to Clinton in 1994 got aviation going again by limiting some of the most egregious suits (one the old Piper lost involved a drunk pilot' another, a guy who had sawed through the frame of his own plane and weakened it).
Despite the law changes, about one third of the cost of a new aircraft is liability insurance.
d.o.l.
Criminal Number 18F
The man in question has said the thing that set him off was that nobody called him and asked him for his point of view before they wrote anything about him (and this was not the first offence by that particular site). He is a legendarily touchy fellow who sued the NTSB for finding him at fault in an accident, forcing a change to NTSB's report (something I have never seen before or since). But if you ask him, he will say that as long as you let him speak and print his words reacting to what you say, he does not mind people expressing negative opinions about him.
It's also my opinion that that site never recovered its sense of community after that, and a corporate buyout killed what spirit was left. They're afraid to even allow reader letters to the editors.
I do not care for attorneys, as I said, but I am glad the man you mention survived his mishap, and I regret that the man we are discussing in this thread did not.
For a disclaimer, I have worked for competitors of the corporation in question (and I did have some material on the site in question, well before this case). None of the others have been sued by the thin-skinned attorney (of course, now, most of them will not write boo about him, even when he sends a press release).
d.o.l.
Criminal Number 18F
Clicky here for a NTSB synopsis of that accident.
As the only FAA authorized instructor for the Hawker Hunter and a aviation litigator to boot, Guilford should've known full well climbing into the pilot's seat that day was a dumbass move. But money (much like youth) makes you think you're bullet-proof.
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