Peter wrote:
If I read it correctly, the PIC went to sleep with the knowledge and agreement of the passenger in the RHS.
Timothy wrote:
I don’t think that reading is correct. The passenger went to sleep with the agreement of the pilot, saying to wake him if the pilot needed him.
The passenger woke shortly before impact, got no sensible response from the pilot and assumes that he was asleep.
The passenger never agreed to the pilot going to sleep.
And the passenger was not a pilot at all. He was not supposed to do anything. I infer from
Newberger dozed off for five to ten minutes and woke up a few seconds before the plane struck the trees. Newberger’s testimony (…) is as follows:
“. . . I looked down, saw that we were going to hit the trees; and I yelled to Willard,`We are going to hit the trees’
That the passenger woke up, saw the trees, yelled to the pilot, and a few seconds later the plane hit the trees.
The plaintiff (the dead pilot’s executor) was not satisfied of being held responsible for 85%, he admitted only 50% on the basis of a legal technicality. The appeal judge yet confirmed the 85% figure set by the jury
I wonder how long the passenger was really awake before the accident. If he woke up and saw the pilot asleep and did nothing for say some minutes or longer…?
If I (as a pilot) did that I would expect the passenger to be in absolute panic upon him/her waking up, and wake me up immediately.
In Europe this is impossible anyway unless you are doing a non-radio OCAS flight.
As with all these legal cases the “justice” (or otherwise) hangs on the finest details, and with it does the more general applicability. It’s like reading about the high net worth divorce settlements which make the newspapers, or better still settlements of cohabitating couples where the courts invent all sorts of bizzare obligations, and the lawyers (who in that field and acting for the plaintiff are usually left wing liberal types) just love new case law being created. Most of them involve some very unusual scenario, and anyway most wealthy people have complex financial arrangements which are hard to untangle.
Pre ppl is clearly very different to post ppl. Instructors have dedicated a lot to get to that level and what is reasonable must apply…
Yet another way to avoid paying a judgement is to pay a little periodically. That ‘attempt to pay’ may legally prevent action to collect on the full amount of the debt, and inflation slowly eats away at the award. As I understand it that might result in the sale of the debt to another entity for a fraction of its original value, and more aggressive attempts to collect from a newly involved party. Similar to the sale of a badly performing loan. The value of the sale might depend on the original value of the judgement, plus the period of time left to collect. In this case, it becomes a limited period hunting license 
If the judgement and resulting debt is enough, and the individual has enough assets for it to matter, it is obviously cheaper to pay professionals to advise and block attempts to collect than it is to pay. In writing that I’m reminded of a case in my area in which a judgement against the Federal government required them to pay a huge amount to a man as a consequence of a Navy jet crashing onto his house and killing his family (he was at work). You’d think that would be a pretty clear cut award but many years later I read they had yet to pay anything to anybody. The Federal Government has a lot of lawyers that they pay regardless…
Very much the same in the UK, and I am sure everywhere else. You can get a judgement but afterwards you might be kicking a dead horse, and a bird in the hand… So you could well settle for a tiny %, and indeed you will have to in any case, if the judgement is for a figure which is punitive or otherwise unrealistic.
As per the link in my post, one reason is because they have a limited time (ten years is apparently common) to collect the debt and another is so they can write off the bad debt and receive a fraction of the money quickly in the form of a tax benefit. In addition, many but not all judgements can be discharged through bankruptcy. Another issue would be if you suspected the individual would spend or give away all their assets before dying, leaving their estate with nothing, you might settle.
Silvaire wrote:
The real world is not so simple, is it? I think the critical milestone in a court settlement is when the money moves from one party to another to settle the debt, not when the debt is created by a civil judgement. Obviously, many debts are eventually settled via long negotiations for less than the amount owned, particularly when there’s no money to pay with.
Why would anyone awarded damages by a ruling of the final court of appeals settle for less? Or even enter into negotiations in the first place?
Peter wrote:
If I read it correctly, the PIC went to sleep with the knowledge and agreement of the passenger in the RHS.
I don’t think that reading is correct. The passenger went to sleep with the agreement of the pilot, saying to wake him if the pilot needed him.
The passenger woke shortly before impact, got no sensible response from the pilot and assumes that he was asleep.
The passenger never agreed to the pilot going to sleep.
Airborne_Again wrote:
This was a Wisconsin Supreme Court decision, so I don’t see how it could be more final than that?
The real world is not so simple, is it? I think the critical milestone in a court settlement is when the money moves from one party to another to settle the debt, not when the debt is created by a civil judgement. Obviously, many debts are eventually settled via long negotiations for less than the amount owned, particularly when there’s no money to pay with.
That said, in many instances a tax write off is available for the amount not paid, meaning the government helps pay the settlement. I’m not sure if that’s true in this case, and I’ve never been in that situation… but like most of the content in discussions like these, I find it amusing
Even more interesting… it appears that this was NOT a case of the estate suing the passenger for compensation, but the other way round!
The plaintiff was the passenger asking the estate for compensation for pain, suffering and lost wages, and the jury granted that, but “deducted” 15% for contributory negligence.
Still a bit silly, but a lot less than the other way round.
