sbrower

You are guilty of a common misunderstanding among people who don't know much about the legal system. The plaintiffs would ultimately need to show that it was Southwest's fault that they were scared. Now, it is true that sometimes a defendant, fearing that the legal expense plus the very small risk of losing, will decide to settle for an amount which is less than the forecast expenses + risk = settlement. But if they settle for $25 million, claiming that they were worried about the legal expense (which was going to be somewhere between $1 million and $5 million), they they are not being fully truthful when they say that they were "avoiding the cost of litigation." What they really mean is that they thought that their legal expense, plus the risk of being obligated to pay WAY MORE than $25 million, made it a good economic choice. And what would need to be shown to make a case worth $100 million? Presumably more than a BS case.

returnoftheyeti

ursine1

Southwest should have tested engines tied to fatal flight, union says

toomanybooks

Proudelitist

False equivalence. That was not due to a lack of preventative maintenance that could result in death.

oopsz

The agreement is with GE.

GE Expands TrueChoice FlightHour Agreement with Southwest Airlines CFM56-7B Engines

GE and Southwest expand TrueChoice agreement | MRO Network

kennycrudup

Nah, but every time some lawyer smelling an easy buck to be made hits up some company I use often, and for millions of dollars over a harmless, yet --it happens mistake, I get bitten in the wallet later on.

I know this is hard for many to understand- especially here in sue-happy America- but not everything "bad" that happens to you is someone's "fault" so much you deserve money for it.

WN, as far as a airline can be, has been pretty decent to me WRT to what I need in an air carrier, and while I couldn't really care less about 'corporate image" or how much they want to bleed their hearts on TV, I don't want to see them paying out $$ they certainly don't need to because some plaintiff's lawyer thinks he can get a payout over "'emotional' trauma".

... and I'm sure that's the line of bullhockey the plaintiffs' lawyers will use in their attempt to extort money from WN- and you've somewhat made my point:
I do believe otherwise (one only needs to look at the news to see how many "'pain' and 'suffering'" payouts came because someone was merely "scared" to where such suits are a long-established thing nowadays) and "is ambiguous" to me sounds like "Eh, let's try and get a payout anyway".

None of these ambulance chasers give an airborne intercourse about "safety" or "regulation" or "enhancing air travel" ... it's all about getting their 30+% percent.

toomanybooks

EmailKid

Got to agree with that @:-)

trouble747

How many? Does that not require injury? Or do you mean something like intentional infliction of emotional distress? I'm not a plaintiffs' lawyer, but the standard seems pretty high.

(And I'm assume you're not using the word "harmless" regarding the passenger that was killed.)

N830MH

https:f//www.reviewjournal.com/business/southwest-has-paid-millions-to-settle-safety-violations/

LegalTender

We'll see if this is a "harmless mistake."

If it isn't, in-house lawyers will draft briefs to thwart compensation claims. The dominant aviation insurer for the four biggest airlines paid a $20.5 million fine for fraud and its CEO served 57 months in prison.

The playing field is not level. Delta's insurance lawyers calculated the compensation for passengers killed in a 1985 crash and argued that since one victim was known to be gay, he probably had AIDS and soon would have died anyway. Therefore, they explained, compensation based on expected lifetime earnings, should be less.

lougord99

Perhaps that is the amount paid to the actual mechanics, but certainly does not take into account time out of service, costs to get the plane to the mechanic and a myriad of other costs associated with maintenance.

InkUnderNails

I am a machinery inspector. Yes, that is likely real close to the time and materials to have an experienced mechanic do a single inspection. I often do these on certain components: X component fails, identify all similar X's, plan and inspect all similar X's, write report, send invoice. Gravy work in my business.

Preventing future failures of a known defect is actually quite easy. What is really hard is determining all potential fatal defects and inspecting for all of them. The airlines already do this remarkably well. This incident was remarkable in part for its rarity.

Ditka

It is a rare instance, but striking that the last 2 CFM-56 catastrophic failures (that we know about) were on the same airline.