 |
 |
to fill out a simple form to connect to Personal Injury Lawyers in your area.
|
|
|
|
|
Law Offices of Steven D. Smith v. Borg-Warner Security Corp.12/23/1999
ia, the 1986 crash.
On September 8, 1986, a Piper aircraft crashed in the Brooks Range. Kenneth Swanson, the pilot, and Merrett Palmer, his sole passenger, died in the accident. Palmer's widow was informed of her husband's death by September 11, 1986. On October 1, 1986, the aircraft's engine was removed from the scene of the crash and later transported to Fairbanks. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) then began an investigation into the cause of the crash, issuing its findings in July 1987. (The NTSB controls access to aircraft wreckage from the time of a crash until its investigation is complete.) The NTSB's report found probable cause to believe that the crash had been caused by pilot error.
The report also noted that the "carburetor was intact and showed no signs of external damage other than heat damage" and that the "carburetor was equipped with a fibre composite float which was heavily damaged by the fire."
On July 30, 1987, the Palmer estate filed a wrongful-death action against the estate of Kenneth Swanson. In November the Swanson estate answered, asserting, inter alia, that (a) third parties were responsible for the accident; and (b) the Palmer estate had failed to join indispensable third parties. Neither the basis for the third parties' liability nor the third parties were identified. On September 7, 1988, one day before the second anniversary of the crash, Swanson's estate filed a wrongful-death action against Borg-Warner, the carburetor manufacturer, specifically alleging that a defective carburetor had caused the crash. [Swanson's attorneys had obtained evidence of Borg-Warner's concealment of the defect through discovery in an unrelated suit, and had not shared this finding with Smith.]
On September 19, 1988, the Palmer estate, after learning that the cause of the crash was more likely a defective carburetor float than pilot error, agreed to the dismissal of its suit against the Swanson estate. The Palmer estate filed suit against Borg-Warner the next day, two years and nine days after Palmer's widow had first learned of the accident.
Borg-Warner moved for summary judgment against the Palmer estate, arguing that the estate's suit for wrongful death was barred by the two-year statute of limitations provided in AS 09.10.070. The Palmer estate argued that, " s of September 20, 1986, Plaintiffs did not know, nor could they have reasonably been expected to know, that the carburetor of the aircraft . . . may have been defective."
On March 14, 1989, the superior court granted summary judgment for Borg-Warner, ruling the claim time-barred as a matter of law. (Judge Hodges concluded that as of September 11, 1986, the Palmer estate had been obliged to investigate in some manner its potential claims for wrongful death.) An Order of Dismissal was entered against the Palmer estate, and the estate appealed. We affirmed the dismissal, ruling [in November 1990] that the estate's suit against Borg-Warner had been untimely filed. Palmer v. Borg-Warner Corp., 818 P.2d 632, 636-37 (Alaska 1990) (Palmer I). Alleged fraudulent concealment of the cause of the crash was not then an issue at either the trial or appellate level.
In February 1990, after a bench trial in the Swanson estate's suit, Judge Hodges issued a memorandum decision and findings of fact and conclusions of law. He found that:
he float in the carburetor of the Swanson aircraft absorbed fuel becoming heavy and sinking causing a sudden unexpected engine failure; the absorption of the fuel by the float was a result of a defect in the manufacturing process or a change in the structure of the float over time; the product was defective at the t
Page 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Alaska Personal Injury Attorneys
Personal Injury Lawyers
|
| |
to fill out a simple form to connect to Personal Injury Lawyers in your area.
|
|