Notable 2007 Jury Verdicts: Private plane crash yields $54 million verdict

In a trial where the defense seemed to fold its case after two unsuccessful witnesses, a flight instructor and his student won a $54.5 million verdict for debilitating injuries they suffered in a private airplane crash.
The plaintiffs claimed the crash was caused by a faulty carburetor, which the manufacturer knew had a long history of problems. They sued the manufacturers of both the carburetor (Precision Airmotive Corp.) and the airplane engine (Teledyne Continental Motors).
The flight instructor lost 13 teeth, suffered a brain stem injury and required six facial surgeries in addition to a jaw replacement. His student suffered a closed head injury and face fractures that required replacement of his eye socket.
The defendants put up a rigorous pretrial battle, and came to trial with 20 experts ready to testify. But after the plaintiffs rested their case, Precision called just two witnesses – and Teledyne called none, according to plaintiffs’ lawyer Arthur Wolk of Philadelphia.
“This is pure speculation, but my guess is that because Precision was open to punitive damages, they decided after the first two [disastrous witnesses] that it was better not to risk another disaster,” said Wolk. “I think it was a wise decision.”
The jury still awarded punitive damages against Precision, but after ordering the defendants to pay $53 million in compensatory damages it tacked on only $1.5 million more in punitives.
When it came time for Precision to put on its defense, it had 20 experts prepared to testify, according to Wolk. But only two actually took the stand – and the engine manufacturer elected to call no witnesses at all.
The first to testify was Precision’s product manager.
He insisted that the lead deposits on the carburetor were normal, even though he had said in his deposition that fuel was not supposed to reach that part of the carburetor.
“His testimony was extremely damaging to the defense,” said Wolk.
“The product manager testified all about their safety procedures, but he never gave the jury a good explanation of why their actions didn’t solve the problem,” said Perkins. “I think the jury was looking for an explanation of why they didn’t do anything about it – and that explanation never came.”
The second witness was a mechanic who testified that local maintenance personnel should be held responsible because they did a poor job maintaining the plane. But Perkins said the mechanic never made a causal connection between the alleged maintenance failures and the crash.
In the end, the jury apportioned 70 percent of the liability to Precision and 30 percent to Teledyne, then added another $1.5 million in punitive damages against the carburetor manufacturer.
The jury awarded $32 million of that money to the instructor and $21 million to the student.
Attorneys for the defense declined comment.
* * *
Verdict: $54 million total
$1.5 million in punitive damages
State: Florida
Type of Case: Private airplane crash
Trial: 5 days
Deliberations: 4 hours
Status: The defendant has appealed its portion of the verdict. The plaintiffs have appealed the court’s decision to grant Teledyne a new trial.
Case name: Godfrey v. Precision Airmotive Corp.
Date of verdict: July 26, 2007
Plaintiffs’ attorneys: Arthur Wolk, Philip Ford and Cheryl DeLisle of The Wolk Law Firm in Philadelphia; Terence Perkins of Smith, Hood, Perkins, Loucks, Stout, Bigman, Lane & Brock in Daytona Beach, Fla.
Defense attorneys: Neal Manne and David Orozco of Susman Godfrey in Houston, and Mary Gaston, Clark Nichols and Brendon Murphy of Perkins Coie in Seattle for Precision Airmotive Corp.; Henry Knoblock of McCormack and Knoblock in Miami for Teledyne Continental Motors.