A lawyer has asked a US court to hear the liability case of an Australian woman injured on the Singapore Airlines jet that slammed into construction equipment and exploded during takeoff last year at Chiang Kai-shek International Airport, killing 83 people.
Such a trial would traditionally be held in courts in Australia, Singapore or Taiwan because a US airline was not involved in the accident and the passenger's final destination was not the US.
But US lawyer Gerald Sterns argued in a legal complaint filed on Wednesday in US District Court in Oakland, California, that the court should hear the case because Singapore Airlines is a member of the 15-carrier Star Alliance consortium, which includes United Airlines, Air Canada, Lufthansa German Airlines and All Nippon Airways.
"If they [Singapore Airlines] want the benefits of the US market, they should be able to be sued there," the Oakland-based attorney said during a recent visit to Taipei.
Star Alliance members allow travelers to accumulate frequent flier miles on one another's flights and they employ a number of "code-sharing" arrangements that let one airline put its own flight number on another carrier's flight and sell some of the seats as its own.
The request for a trial names the Star Alliance, United Airlines and Singapore Airlines as defendants. The plaintiffs are Australians Helen Broadfoot and her husband, David, who was not on the plane but "incurred the loss of his wife's consortium," or companionship, due to her injuries, the complaint said.
Sterns acknowledged he wants to hold the trial in the US, where victims are traditionally awarded much higher compensation than in Singaporean, Taiwanese or Australian courts.
"The United States is the last place in the world Singapore Airlines wants to defend this claim," Sterns said.
Singapore Airlines has apologized for the crash and has offered payments of US$400,000 to relatives of people who died, while saying payments to those who survived would be worked out on a case-by-case basis.
The Los Angeles-bound Boeing 747-400 burst into flames after the pilot tried to take off on the wrong runway and plowed into construction equipment on Oct. 31.
Taiwan investigators have said they will release their report today.
This newspaper reported yesterday that poor communication in the cockpit caused the pilot to miss clear warnings that the plane was on the wrong runway.
Taiwan's Aviation Safety Council declined to comment on the report, based on two unidentified "aviation industry insiders."
Under the Warsaw Convention, an international agreement that sets guidelines for airline liability, a crash victim can sue the airline in the company's principle place of business, in the airline's home base, in the place the victim purchased the ticket or in the final destination of the victim's trip.
A conventional interpretation of the international agreement would not allow the Australians to sue Singapore Airlines in the US. The airline is not based in the US nor is it the company's principle place of business. Also, Australia was the victim's final destination.
Sterns said his Star Alliance argument might be a tough sell to some judges, but he said courts have been willing to hear such cases before because they fear foreign courts will not give a fair hearing.
CHIPMAKING INVESTMENT: J.W. Kuo told legislators that Department of Investment Review approval would be needed were Washington to seek a TSMC board seat Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) yesterday said he received information about a possible US government investment in Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) and an assessment of the possible effect on the firm requires further discussion. If the US were to invest in TSMC, the plan would need to be reviewed by the Department of Investment Review, Kuo told reporters ahead of a hearing of the legislature’s Economics Committee. Kuo’s remarks came after US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick on Tuesday said that the US government is looking into the federal government taking equity stakes in computer chip manufacturers that
NORTHERN STRIKE: Taiwanese military personnel have been training ‘in strategic and tactical battle operations’ in Michigan, a former US diplomat said More than 500 Taiwanese troops participated in this year’s Northern Strike military exercise held at Lake Michigan by the US, a Pentagon-run news outlet reported yesterday. The Michigan National Guard-sponsored drill involved 7,500 military personnel from 36 nations and territories around the world, the Stars and Stripes said. This year’s edition of Northern Strike, which concluded on Sunday, simulated a war in the Indo-Pacific region in a departure from its traditional European focus, it said. The change indicated a greater shift in the US armed forces’ attention to a potential conflict in Asia, it added. Citing a briefing by a Michigan National Guard senior
POWER PLANT POLL: The TPP said the number of ‘yes’ votes showed that the energy policy should be corrected, and the KMT said the result was a win for the people’s voice The government does not rule out advanced nuclear energy generation if it meets the government’s three prerequisites, President William Lai (賴清德) said last night after the number of votes in favor of restarting a nuclear power plant outnumbered the “no” votes in a referendum yesterday. The referendum failed to pass, despite getting more “yes” votes, as the Referendum Act (公民投票法) states that the vote would only pass if the votes in favor account for more than one-fourth of the total number of eligible voters and outnumber the opposing votes. Yesterday’s referendum question was: “Do you agree that the Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant
ENHANCED SECURITY: A Japanese report said that the MOU is about the sharing of information on foreign nationals entering Japan from Taiwan in the event of an emergency The Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday confirmed that Taiwan and Japan had signed an agreement to promote information exchanges and cooperation on border management, although it did not disclose more details on the pact. Ministry spokesman Hsiao Kuang-wei (蕭光偉) said the ministry is happy to see that the two nations continue to enhance cooperation on immigration control, in particular because Taiwan and Japan “share a deep friendship and frequent people-to-people exchanges.” “Last year, more than 7.32 million visits were made between the two countries, making it even more crucial for both sides to work closer on immigration and border control,” he said. Hsiao
RSS