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Show A4 The Salt Lake Tribune NATION Sunday, January 9, 2000 Lawyers Put Faces on Air-Crash Pain Hard legal work often results in settlements soccer goal scored by his 6-year BY BLAKE MORRISON old son, Jordan. It also meant gaining a client and, in the end, a THE ASSOCIATED PRESS CHICAGO For at least 21 seconds, the passengers knew aviation lawyers. For Lebovitz, 43, the day-long sales pitch meant missingthe first paycheck that could put Jordan through college three times over. Thefinancial stakes make such sacrifices small for the few dozen they were going to die. lawyers whospecialize in aviation wouldn't beableto, either. Since USAir Flight 427 crashed who die in a jet crash, whether theysue orsettle before suing, end up with something. Those payoffs make securing a client perhaps the most hotly contested aspect of air disaster litigation. Lawyer Thomas Demetrio couldn't shake that image. Just days before trial, he bet a jury outsidePittsburgh on Sept. 8, 1994, Demetrio and a cadre of lawyers for families of the dead had spent years building cases against the airline and jet manufacturer Boeing They hired economists to turn thelife of each victim into dollars andcents. They boughtthetail ofa Boeing 737 for a courtroom exhib- law. Indeed, the families of those The Peters’ son, Todd, found Lebovitz through a newspaperarticle. But manylawyers, Lebovitz included, obtain passengerlists anotherfull year before plans for a trial began to take shape. A Theory and a Part: Arthur Wolk greeted the gaggle of lawyers without leaving the chair at his dining room table. With a cast from armpits to pelvis and his right arm held bya sling, he needed helpjusttosit up. Notlong before the meeting in November 1996, Wolk, an aviation lawyer andpilot, had broken his armand back whena warplanehe part — that he believed could help Flight 427 the crash of a 737 daythe first lawsuit was filed outside Colorado one lawyer was tossed out of a Springs in 1991. As part of his work ona lawsuitinthat crash, he Andin perhaps the most gruesomeexercise, the lawyerstried to assess what passengers experi- Pa., after pitching his services toa had bought a 737’s power-control unit, a 90-pound rudderpart about it. One lawyer even spent $70,000 enced during those final 21 seconds — from the time the 737’s rudderlikely jammedandthejet rolled onto its back until it barreled nose-first into the ground, killing all 132 aboard. Someone, they vowed, would payfor the lives that werelost. Like more than 90 percent of lawsuitsfiled after commercial jet crashes, Demetrio’s case wouldbe settled before a jury heard the story. Only hours before trial was to beginin Illinois state court memorial service in McCandless, victim’s wife. Congress was so outraged aboutthe hard-sell tactics that it passed the Aviation Disaster Family Assistance Act. The law prohibits lawyers from contacting victims or family members within 30 days of a crash. For the most part, lawyers have complied. Within months of the USAir crash, Lebovitz had begun preparing lawsuits on behalfofPeters and three other families. More than a yearlater, manyof the 84 suits stemming from the crash had beenfiled. More than a dozen in November, the family of Mar. of the lawsuits ended quickly with shall Berkman, a Pennsylvania manufacturing executive, agreed to the largest settlement ever paid many families ofthe flight's other 48 passengers and crew members to the estate of a commercialairline crash victim:$25.2 million. Now,with 217 dead in the Oct. out-of-court seitlements, and reached settlements without suing. Fortherest, it would take scores of newlawsuits.Astheliti- gation from Flight 427 demon strates, the process will be haunting and complex —andcertainto last for years. family membersspokeat length in dozens of interviews. Their stories, and hundreds of pages of court documents from the lawsuits, provide a vivid account of how such cases come together, from the moment a commercial jet crashesto the daya suit is settled. Securing the Client: In the house she once shared with her husband. DonnaRaePeters wept. Just 10 days earlier, William Pe- ters haddied in seat 10C of Flight 427. Foreight hours this September day, lawyer Jamie Lebovitz passed her Kleenexandlistened to tearful recollections of theirlife before the crash. Then Lebovitz and Peters shared a drive through McMurray, Pa., where William and Donna Raehadraised their three sons. By the time they hugged goodbye. Peters, then 53, had signed a retainer assuring Lebovitz 23 percent of anyverdict or settlement a rate consistent with those charged byother HOW’S YOUR HEARING? iad) MEDICAL PROBLEM? Call for a FREE hearing screening by our licensed certified audiologists: LDS Hospitat HEARING SERVICES IHC HEARING AND BALANCE CENTER and find out what had happened,” Wolk,56, says But getting the part through traditional channels had worried him. So he quietly spread word among a worldwide network of airplane parts scavengers who forage for equipment from scrapped or wrecked planes. A monthlater,a call came.“We found one in Peru,”’ Wolk recounts the caller saying, “and you wantit becauseit’s the onlyone in the world.” In a few weeks, a box with thepart arrived at his office. Wolk still isn’t sure what the markup was on part that cost him $70,000. “It doesn’t matter,” he says. spieree the price, I was going to pay As hetold the iguvers gathered 737 themprove whowas responsible Life expectancy: 7 <P satin small numberofsuits that aren't settled go to trial in two phases. In the first, the liability phase, law | First class pation:Scien; ientist, Department of Ene, seat 10C Salary: $74,894 a year yersforthe victims’ families must show that someone theairline or jet maker, for instance is to blame. Although manylawyers may be representing crash vic: tims, the court appoints a small group of them to handlea single liability trial on behalf ofall who died. The rationale: Everyoné was killed asa result of the sameaccident, and consolidating the liability aspect of the lawsuits avoids Peters’ worth Low estimate: This projection assumesthat Peters would have worked 11.5 more years. High estimate: This projection assumes that Peters would have worked in the Energy Depa tmentuntil age 62, then as aconsultantuntil age 70. Experts say he could have made $125,000 a yearas a consultant. Lowestimate duplication. Potential assets If this group of lawyers, called a “steering committee,” can prove Eamings _ Retirement income Employerthrift plan contributions Performance of household chores whowasresponsiblefor the crash, the second stageof the litigation, the damages phase, begins. Each suit is considered separately to determine how much family members should be compensated for theirloss. The lawyers whohad gathered at Wolk’s house in 1996 were membersof two steering committees. One represented families thathadfiled in federal court; the other workedfor families suing in state court. The steering commit- tees had hundredsof thousandsof dollars to spendto prove that US- Air, Boeing or Parker-Hannifin | High estimate | $988,074.06|$1,655,256.86. $625,415.81 $744,201.15 $49,403.70 | $32,762.00 baa | $85,045.00 $136,072.00 (at $5 per hour) (at $8 per hour) Personalfood,clothing, etc.| _-$197,614.81 __-$331,051.37_ Total lost becauseof death | Source: James Kenkel, economist wasto blamefor the crash. Mostair-crash suits end up in federal court because the victims and defendants are usually from USA TODAY variousstates, each with different rules that govern how lawyers can. See Next Page OUR ENTIRE$17,000,000 FINE JEWELRY INVENTORYAT 15°off Choosefrom ourbrilliant array of exciting newly-styled collection of diamondrings, necklaces, pendants, bracelets and earrings — many set with precious rubies, sapphires and emeralds. Our entire inventory includeslustrous cultured pearl strands and jewelry, as well as gleaming 14k and 18k gold and colorful gemstonejewelry. 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Foothill Drive, SLC Bryner CLINIC 350-0442 745 E. 300 South, SLC IN Ist Kou seated Building the Case: The law MUST LIQUIDATE 321-3125 8th Avenue & C Street, SLC "When the meeting ended, the lawyers believed they closer to solidifying a Boeing and the part's manufacturer, Parker-Hannifin. ZCMI FINE JEWELRY defen. their expert witnesses and some buy it. . Peters, 54, a scientist from McMurray, Pa. His family settied its lawsuit against USAir and Boeing for an undisclosed amount. this is really it! Lawyers for Boeing, USAir (now US Airways) andjet parts- dants in suits stemming from the crash of Flight 427 — declined to talk about the litigation. But lawyers for the families: of victims, thesize of a car muffler. “To really do this job, I had to Flight 427 victim William the servo valve LAST 6 DAYS 31 crash of EgyptAir Flight 990, lawyers have begun preparing maker Parker-Hannifin the unit for the crash. In air disaster litigation, the victims, had agreed to meetat his suburbanPhiladelphia home. Wolk had a theory — anda jet for a jet part he couldfind only on a scrap heapin Peru. would be able to show howpart of — and brought down the represented families of Flight 427 the familiescollect millions. Wolk was convinced that a rudder malfunction had caused on the same confident that the expert he had hired in the Colorado Springs case yers hopedthetheory would help andsend brochuresor videotaped introductions to victims’ relatives. than a week after crashed at his dining room table, he was was trying to landhit a fence and burst into flames. Becauseof his injuries, the lawyers, all of whom Placing a Value on Life In an air crash lawsuit, economists calculate victim's financial contribution to his family had he not died prematurely. in these , economist James Kenkel calculates the worth of William Peters SHOP ALL STORES MONDAY THROUGH SATURDAY 10 A.m.-9 P.M. 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