Attorney Notes South Florida Juries Typically Pay Out More

There's another lawsuit to tell you about in the August 27 takeoff accident involving a Comair CRJ-100... but this one is different than the rest for a couple of reasons.

Steven Marks, with the Podhurst Orseck law firm, has filed a wrongful-death lawsuit in Broward County Circuit Court on behalf of the family of Charles Lykins of Naples, FL, one of 49 people who died in the crash. Defendants named in the complaint are Comair Inc., a Delta Connection carrier; Delta Air Lines; and First Officer James M. Polehinke, the plane's copilot.

This is the first lawsuit made public that names Polehinke, the only survivor of the accident, as a defendant.

In its initial factual report on the crash, the National Transportation Safety Board noted the CRJ100 regional jet, which was cleared to take off from 7,000 foot-long Runway 22, mistakenly departed from 3,500 foot-long Runway 26 (below). That runway was not long enough for the loaded CRJ to take off under conditions at the time of the accident, and the plane subsequently hit a berm, caught fire, and came to rest in a field off the departure end of the runway.

"In addition, it is clear that the flight crew made critical and fatal mistakes," said Marks in a prepared statement. "Comair has acknowledged publicly that its pilots were using an outdated airport map in an attempt to make excuses for departing from the wrong runway. Therefore, both the airline and its pilots are clearly responsible for this tragedy despite what we are sure will be efforts by their insurer and lawyers to blame others."

One reason the suit was filed in Broward County, Marks said, was because Mr. Polehinke resides in Margate, FL. Another reason, the law firm states, is that while other plantiffs have filed lawsuits in Kentucky... jury verdicts are usually much higher in Florida, and especially South Florida. The firm cites a $25.2 million jury verdict Marks obtained in a lawsuit filed for the family of a pilot killed in a midair collision as an example.

"We sought to avoid having Mr. Polehinke named as a party but were unable to reach what we thought would be a routine stipulation with the insurer," the attorney said.

Marks is no stranger to aviation accident-related lawsuits -- Podhurst Orseck says he has "represented victims in countless significant major commercial and general aviation crashes." As Aero-News reported, he is also representing families of passengers onboard the Siberia Airlines plane that crashed in the Russian Federation on July 9.

Marks has also represented the families of passengers on a Chalk's Ocean Airways seaplane that crashed in Miami Beach, FL in December 2005, as well as the 1996 crash of ValuJet Flight 592 into the Florida Everglades.

Podhurst Orseck, P.A. is based in Miami, FL, and concentrates exclusively in trial and appellate litigation.

FMI: www.podhurst.com