LV family of Swissair crash victims files suit

Kim Smith

Thursday, Oct. 14, 1999 | 10:21 a.m.

Three Las Vegas siblings who lost their parents in the fatal crash of Swissair Flight 111 last year have filed a $50 million wrongful death lawsuit against Swissair, Delta Air Lines and the Boeing Co.

The lawsuit, filed on behalf of James W. Beckett, Susan L. Patterson and Jean Ann Folk by Las Vegas attorney Roger Grant, accuses the three companies of negligence, product liability and breach of express and implied warranty.

The plaintiffs' parents, James Lucas, 73, and Anna Lucas, 75, of Las Vegas were on their way to Europe when Swissair Flight 111 crashed near Halifax, Nova Scotia, on Sept. 2, 1998. The flight had originated in New York and was en route to Geneva, Switzerland, with 229 people aboard. No one survived.

The Lucases had been married 48 years.

Seventeen minutes before the crash pilots reported the cockpit was filling with smoke, and Canadian authorities later found heat-damaged wiring aboard the plane.

According to the lawsuit, which was refiled Wednesday after some minor changes were made, investigators also discovered that an in-flight entertainment system was "dangerously defective, unsafe as installed and unairworthy."

The company that designed and installed the system, Interactive Flight Technology, was also named in the suit.

In August, Swissair, Delta and Boeing offered to pay compensatory damages to the victims' survivors if they agreed not to pursue punitive damages.

More than 165 cases have been filed against the companies so far, and Swissair faces claims of more than $16 billion from the families of U.S. victims.

"The settlement offer set forth was totally unacceptable. It was almost insulting in my opinion," Grant said. "It wasn't even in the range of consideration."

The parties in the suit are arguing over the applicability of the Death on the High Seas Act, Grant said. The act severely limits the amount of damages a defendant can be ordered to pay in cases where the crash occurs outside territorial waters.

The plaintiffs in this case contend the crash occurred within territorial waters, Grant said.

There are two phases in a case such as this: a liability phase and a compensatory phase, Grant said. All of the plaintiffs' liability cases have been consolidated into one and will be tried in Philadelphia unless a settlement is reached. The compensatory phases will be tried in the district in which the plaintiffs' filed their lawsuit.