Jan 26 2008
pilot’s lawyer blames victims for crash…
A lawyer for the first officer of Comair Flight 5191 has asserted a novel, and controversial, defense in 21 lawsuits filed against him: that the 47 passengers of the doomed flight share the blame for their deaths.
In response to questions from a plaintiff’s lawyer, James Polehinke’s lawyer asserted that the passengers killed in the Aug. 27, 2006, crash should have known that Blue Grass Airport was dangerous because of considerable media coverage of a massive runway construction project there. They should have known the air traffic control tower was understaffed, that airports in Louisville and Northern Kentucky are safer and that taking off in the dark is dangerous, wrote William E. Johnson, a well-known attorney from Frankfort.
Attorney David Royse, who represents two families, said it amounts to a blame-the-victim strategy. Polehinke had asserted “contributory negligence” — legalese for saying the other party is also at fault and contributed to their injuries.
“We find it ironic and disingenuous that he would suggest the passengers are now at fault when he was the pilot and he had all this information,” Royse said.
Read about it here.
[From me]
This has to be one of the dumbest claims I’ve ever heard! How is it the victims’ fault?
What do you think?
One response so far
OK, I’ll grant you that that defense was pretty shaky. But how about this one for the first-place nominee for the “dumbest defense” award (click here):