Peter wrote:
but as far as airlines go they must either similarly not be liable
The Warsaw convention and the Montreal convention limit their liability in international CAT.
Mooney_Driver wrote:
Correct but the way I have observed it at least in my region in recent years the way that particularly GA accidents have been criminalized would point in the direction that the chances of losing in court have gone up, particularly since a lot more cases go to penal court in the first place. A conviction in the penal system (fine, prison e.t.c.) will almost automatically guarantee that you will loose any civil case which follows.
There are three things to be aware of. I don’t know how this is done in other countries:
The independence is done by purpose, but may cause some problems every now and then as reported in GA media. In any case, if the police investigation finds that you busted some airspace, but the investigation bureau find that this busting is not the cause of the accident, I don’t see how someone could make this into a civil case. A typical scenario in a road accident is driving on red light and hitting a pedestrian running into the road. This is gross negligence with a clear cause and effect and it happens in a fraction of a second, too fast to react. A similar thing in the air would be landing without clearance and hitting something, but what is the chance of that? You won’t land if the runway is occupied, and ATC surely will yell at you if you try also.
I don’t know, there is something very theoretical about this liability thing that doesn’t really make it into the realms of reality IMO.
LeSving wrote:
You can be prosecuted for anything and everything, but this does not mean you will lose in court, or that the court will even accept it as a case.
Correct but the way I have observed it at least in my region in recent years the way that particularly GA accidents have been criminalized would point in the direction that the chances of losing in court have gone up, particularly since a lot more cases go to penal court in the first place. A conviction in the penal system (fine, prison e.t.c.) will almost automatically guarantee that you will loose any civil case which follows.
LeSving wrote:
To take that risk is a choice he made, the PIC is in no position to make that choice for him, unless kidnapping the guy.
That is common sense yes. Which means it has nothing to do with how a lawyer has got to think to keep his business going. Brutally said, a defense lawyer needs to get you off even if there is no reasonable doubt, a state attorney needs to get you the highest penalty possible. It’s like a barganing marketplace with the judge as the guy who has to sort out the whole story. Preciously few of those have any knowledge about aviation, so guess what your chances are.
LeSving wrote:
Private GA is like: Anything may happen to the pilot and the plane which may kill you as a passenger, but if it happens, hopefully you will get down again in one piece.
Same thing if you go by car with someone. But in reality, with all the efforts put into maintenance and training things should improve, only they don’t because with the high prices people fly far too few. And if they try to increase safety by making more and more rules about what else to do they reach the opposite effect.
Mooney_Driver wrote:
get prodecuted for much lesser cases of negligence than before
You can be prosecuted for anything and everything, but this does not mean you will lose in court, or that the court will even accept it as a case. If this super rich and super important person takes a ride with a private plane with a single PPL pilot, that in itself can be seen as gross negligence in comparison to the self appointed “importance” of that person. To take that risk is a choice he made, the PIC is in no position to make that choice for him, unless kidnapping the guy.
Private GA is like: Anything may happen to the pilot and the plane which may kill you as a passenger, but if it happens, hopefully you will get down again in one piece.
Commercial flight is like: Everything is continuously being done and improved to prevent the above. (Two pilots with on average much more training and discipline, better aircraft, twin engines/turbines etc etc).
I would not bother on the net worth of may pax or any liability beyond the standard number, I will just make sure I do my best to stay alive that would help both pilot & pax,
If someone is concerned about how his estate gets passed to wife & childrens after his death, irrespective of death circumenstances, the best guarantee is to write assets (preferably illiquid ones) on your children & wife names while you are and they are alive, I guess there are no other ways to be sure if they are on your name and you are “lyi’n in chalk”?
Peter wrote:
because they cannot be aware if some passenger is worth a lot.
In this case the defence might have a good case to make yes.
Would be difficult in the case of someone however who is in the papers all day and night and particularly in cases like the one which triggered this thread.
There is a legal principle in the UK, and perhaps other places, that the driver of a car who doesn’t know that a passenger has a painting worth 100M in his bag, is not liable for the 100M if they crash and the painting is destroyed. I’ve tried googling for the name of the principle, without success, but it is well known.
I don’t know if this would apply to a high net worth GA passenger, but as far as airlines go they must either similarly not be liable or they have “unlimited” cover – because they cannot be aware if some passenger is worth a lot.
LeSving wrote:
There simply is no way a court would come to the decision that the PIC is responsible for how much risk the passenger (any passenger) is willing to take.
Based on what? If there is one thing I have learnt in a long time of looking at the outcome of such things then my take is a deep distrust of any court decision and what can or can not happen. It depends on the judge, the lawyers you can afford and the political climate in a country and often enough just on the day of the week and other non-relevant factors.
Up to a few years ago, simple negligence was not even a problem, only criminal negligence, which is harder to prove, was. Today, you can get prodecuted for much lesser cases of negligence than before, at least in this country, as the security and safety demands of the general public have gone up diametrically and it appears to me that particularly penal courts have become much harsher with GA accidents than before, maybe due to the fact that todays society is less focussing on prevention and re-integration than into revenge and applying the hardest possible sentence to a “crime”. Also in my opinion, the threshold for declaring someone criminally negligent has massively gone down. The result is clear, with this you are wide open to damage claims in addition to possible sentences.
Still, with a proper insurance the general risk should not be prohibitive. But it’s saving in the wrong place if you take out minimal insurance and, in the worst case, leave your family homeless and in massive debt just because you saved a few bob on insurance preminums. Maybe this is a Swiss thing, here people tend to massively overinsure but I think this has to do with the collective perception of how courts treat members of the public after accidents and other mishaps.
LeSving wrote:
There simply is no way a court would come to the decision that the PIC is responsible for how much risk the passenger (any passenger) is willing to take.
I believe that the legal tradition in this respect differ much between countries — particularly between Scandinavian countries and the UK. I find it inconceivable that a Swedish court would consider a professional soccer player to be an “asset” in the sense of this discussion.
Peter wrote:
I wonder if anyone here knows the position in other countries in Europe?
I think it’s more of a non issue and falls back on itself. If the passenger is a super important, super wealthy person with “unlimited” resources, then why did that person get involved in something as risky as being a passenger of a small private plane flown by a single pilot with only PPL? All statistics show that pilot error is the number one cause of fatalities in private GA, and the number of fatal accidents per hour flown is substantial, comparable to MC, maybe more? There simply is no way a court would come to the decision that the PIC is responsible for how much risk the passenger (any passenger) is willing to take.
