| September 2,
2005 -- Legal specialists from Britain and the US who work
with a large American law firm specializing in airplane accidents
were in Cyprus this week in the wake of the recent air disaster
and asked to speak to the Cyprus Weekly about the purpose of
their visit. |
Nigel
Taylor of Nigel Taylor & Associates in Kent,
UK, and Michael C. Pierce with offices in Huston and
Panama City, said they were here to try and team up
with Cypriot lawyers in representing families of the
Helios plane crash through the Lieff Global firm in
San Francisco and New York.
"We
think it is too early to expect any families to want to
talk to lawyers; they are consumed by grief, as one would
understand, and they'd want rather to talk about why this
accident happened, who was responsible, how they will be
held uncountable and what can be done to avoid a repetition
of this kind of accident in the future." |
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| The interview
was held in the light of a recent announcement by the Cyprus
Bar Association advising the relatives of victims to be cautious
about being approached by foreign lawyers on the matter of
compensation claims. The legal specialists said they were aware
of the Bar announcement and stressed they had not made any
direct contact with the victims' relatives, neither did they
anticipate doing so. |
| Taylor said
they had engaged their own consultants "to look at all
the available information that we can get our hands on in this
particular case and we want to know more about it." |
| Asked how their
consultants could carry out an investigation, he said they
were people dedicated to the whole subject of investigating
air disasters, with many years of experience, contacts in the
industry and having access to sources of information. |
| "We are
here to talk to Cypriot lawyers because we see this as being
a complex case that will require the skills of both Cypriot
lawyers and foreign specialists," the UK lawyer said. |
| According to
him there are two different strands to liability in cases like
this. One involves the airline and the other involves any other
party that could be responsible, for example the maker of a
component part that might have failed. |
| The responsibility
of the airline under the terms of international law is very
clear. Their liability is undeniable. The more complicated
situation - Taylor continued - is whether there is a liability
of anybody else. And this is why the case has attracted the
interest of foreign lawyers; because there is a supposition
that it may be a product liability case. |
| "We know
there was a failure of the air conditioning, air pressurization
system; that the aircraft reported a problem when it was only
seven minutes out of Larnaca. We know they had a major problem
in November last year of the same nature, this being an admission
made by Helios that they had worked on the pressurization system.
The people who do Helios' maintenance, a British company, should
have known that there was a problem. Possibly they have consulted
with Boeing or the makers of other parts about that problem." |
| The families
need answers to more questions, which they most likely will
not receive from Helios or from the official investigation. |
| One way of
getting these answers, Taylor explained, was through court
ordered discovery, which is part of the legal process in the
American legal system. The families can force the defendant
companies to disclose information and answer questions. "And
this is an important part of what we may have to do in a case
like this. It's discovering the facts, which is a paramount
thing for the families," Taylor noted. |
| Asked if bad
maintenance of the plane could not be blamed, thus reverting
liability to the airline, Taylor said, "Yes, maintenance
could play a part. It was not an old airplane. We want to know
who was doing the maintenance, what they were required to do,
if they were given sufficient time to do the maintenance required." |
| Asked how they
proposed to help with compensation claims he said they needed
to work in partnership with Cypriot lawyers. "They have
an important role to play. The clients will naturally want
to consult with lawyers in Cyprus and there are Cypriot legal
issues, which we are not qualified to deal with. We have no
intention of doing anything in the courts of Cyprus, we have
no intention of doing anything that we are not properly qualified
to do." |
| He explained
that Cypriot lawyers, because there had not been an aviation
disaster in this country for many years, cannot have that kind
of expertise. You only find that kind of expertise in two countries
in the whole world. One is in London because of the insurance
market, and the other is the US, which has been the pioneer
of aviation. |
| American law
firms have been involved in airplane accident work for many
years. The London insurance market plays a huge role because
of Lloyds and when it's not an American aircraft, it is inevitably
insured in the Lloyds market. |
| "Helios
was insured through a London insurance broker, their insurers
are in London, there is lots of insurance - we have all the
details," Taylor said. "Helios has sufficient liability
coverage. To obtain appropriate compensation for the families,
however, requires legal representation. The families are going
to need an effective, experienced legal team. They are going
to need local lawyers, they are going to need foreign consultants
who are expert in aviation accident cases." |
| "Our mission," Taylor
explained, "is to convey to local lawyers that we have
to work together. We are a firm that has great expertise in
these types of disasters and have a website dedicated to aircraft
accidents. Our website led to inquiries from Cypriot lawyers,
and they came here to meet with them in response." |
| Taylor continued, "We
can provide guidance to Cypriot lawyers on the international
legal issues that arise. We may have more familiarity with
issues like the Montreal Convention because this is what we
do everyday. But if the case is going to be heard in a Cypriot
court, it has to be done by a Cypriot lawyer. We are not here
to take work from Cypriot lawyers. |
| Nigel Taylor
was invited to comment particularly on the Bar Association
warning to prospective clients about the "no win no fee" method
used by American lawyers. |
| He confirmed
that it was normal for American lawyers to work on this basis
in such cases, because if the client were to engage a lawyer
on an hourly rate, the expense would be enormous. |
| "We would
be happy to work like this because then we would be guaranteed
our money, but the number of hours that would be put into a
case like this and the expenses that would have to incur in
experts, translation, volumes of documents, taking depositions
in different countries, would be enormous. |
| And typically
when I talk to bereaved families they want a no win no fee
arrangement, because it takes the burden away from them and
gives them the ability to have experts. |
| The airline,
the manufacturers and their insurers are going to hire the
best legal brains to defend them. The insurers would have already
appointed a top London law firm. You have to fight fire with
fire." |
| He said the
US lawyers also took the risk and accepted to pay court fees
as well if the client lost the case. |
| Asked about
compensation awards, Taylor said that in the US you had to
divide the compensation claim in to two parts: first was the
economic loss and second the non-economic loss. The economic
loss was the lost value of the future income. |
| "If you
are the head of the family with a couple of kids and you are
the bread winner and you lose your life on an airplane, then
what the legal compensation tries to do is replace the income
that you'd have earned - what job you did, how much you earned,
how many more years you had to work. They look who your family
are, your expenses and they make calculations based on your
future income and the years that you would have spent earning
it. That's the economic loss. If you are the bread winner,
it is going to be a big claim. |
| If the person
who died is perhaps a student, having no income, no kids, providing
no kind of support to their parents, in that case under the
laws of Cyprus or England, it works out to be very little,
probably £10,000 is the bereavement compensation that
you would have claimed. Plus the value of the personal effects
that were in your luggage and what you wore, watch, jewellery,
etc. |
| The same situation
holds for children, the bereavement is a fixed figure. |
| But in the
US they compensate the non-economic loss very generously. For
what they call pain and suffering, they award large damages
and in an airplane case like this you would expect at least
$1 million for each victim. |
| "The insurance
companies in the US keep statistics that show the running average
and if you look at what juries have done and the settlements
that have been agreed, typically the compensation is more than
$1m. for each passenger." |
| Asked how long
it normally takes for a case like this to be tried, Taylor
said, "They vary enormously and my most successful case
was completed in less than one year. Typically I would say
they would normally take 3 years. And the most difficult case
presenting all kinds of difficult problems takes longer than
that." |
| He also said
that a claimant family would not usually have to attend court;
evidence could be taken at deposition, usually filmed on camera
with lawyers on both sides asking questions. |
