Have you been sued as a GA pilot?

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wildb

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wildb
Have you or someone you know been sued? based off the other thread about getting waivers from passengers, I was wondering what GA pilots have been sued over and what all the details of that case was?
 
My dad was sued for hangar rash 50 years ago.

An FBO line guy was marshaling his Cessna into a parking space on the ramp, and his wing clipped the tail of another plane. The other owner sued for damages and loss of use. My dad responded that he was being marshalled by the FBO, and the suit was dropped. I'm guessing the owner then went after the FBO.

Don't know anybody who was sued for personal injury, fortunately.
 
Nope. Just gotta make sure your passengers are dead and not just unconscious.:D
 
You ask the wrong question. It should be......have many GA pilots been sued? I'm sure the answer is YES!
 
HAHAHAHAHAA! All Thomas Frank articles are a joke of journalism and pure farce. All of GA should sue him.
 
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Aopa did a series of articles rebuffing the claims in the USATODAY piece.
 
PPC1052 said:
People that I know. But that's how I got to know them.
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Actually, now that I think about it, in the ones where I represent pilots being sued for crashing a plane, as opposed to corporations that manufactured parts or owned the aircraft, the pilots are dead. So I guess I didn't meet a GA pilot being "sued as a GA pilot."
 
Not me or anyone I know.

It happens I'm sure, often enough for me to buy insurance, but not often enough for me to live in fear.
 
One of my neighbors was sued and lost over an incident revolving around an incident when he was a flight instructor (in his aircraft). I don't know all the details.
 
PPC1052 said:
Actually, now that I think about it, in the ones where I represent pilots being sued for crashing a plane, as opposed to corporations that manufactured parts or owned the aircraft, the pilots are dead. So I guess I didn't meet a GA pilot being "sued as a GA pilot."
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I'm sure that's very reassuring to the OP. :D
 
Obviously, it is a rare occurrence. Yet pilots don't let that slow them down about worrying about it. I know a guy who took his experimental apart and sold the pieces because he was so worried about liability. He doesn't have a pot to **** in, but he is scared to death of being sued. :rolleyes:

I do know a guy that was sued my the mother of a college student killed in his plane. He let the college student use the plane and he forgot to turn the fuel all the way on causing the plane to crash on take off. They settled out of court within the liability limits of his insurance policy.
 
Pedals2Paddles said:
I'm sure that's very reassuring to the OP. :D
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Always happy to help.

I will say that being in the room for the deposition of the widow of one pilot involved in a mid-air collision while the widow and the mother of the instrument student in the other aircraft were sitting at the end of the table scowling at her the whole time was pretty uncomfortable. When people get sued for airplane crashes, it's not pretty.
 
45,000 in 50 years is not so bad. Compared with 45,000 a year for cars.
 
Jimmy cooper said:
You ask the wrong question. It should be......have many GA pilots been sued? I'm sure the answer is YES!
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You'd have to define "many."

Whether one is talking aviation or anything else, most injury and property damage claims are resolved with no one getting sued.

And no, I don't know any pilots who have been sued on an injury or property damage claim. I know some who have been sued on aircraft purchase/sales issues.
 
Not yet, but if you fly with pax,long enough I will be. That's the breaks.
 
PPC1052 said:
Always happy to help.

I will say that being in the room for the deposition of the widow of one pilot involved in a mid-air collision while the widow and the mother of the instrument student in the other aircraft were sitting at the end of the table scowling at her the whole time was pretty uncomfortable. When people get sued for airplane crashes, it's not pretty.
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I'd be offering up throat punches, but that would probably get me sued...
 
In the past five years, I can only recall one case that I've heard of, it was certainly discussed here. A woman, a model, walked into the propeller as she was deplaning. There was a lawsuit involved there, but it's the only one I can recall.

I've heard of stories about insurance companies suing, especially through suboration, but I have no first or second hand experience.
 
midlifeflyer said:
You'd have to define "many."

Whether one is talking aviation or anything else, most injury and property damage claims are resolved with no one getting sued.

And no, I don't know any pilots who have been sued on an injury or property damage claim. I know some who have been sued on aircraft purchase/sales issues.
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To say that you personally don't know any is not very encouraging. I think many aircraft and auto suits are settled out or out of court and you just haven't heard of them. Why would you!? Many suits are settled out of court as the insurance company would rather avoid the expense of a trial. ( pretty common occurance)
 
Waivers are against public policy in Virginia and not effective. But people get them anyway to discourage litigation.

I am aware of suits and claims involving aviation accidents. I've been involved in a few as an attorney, not as a party. No one I know personally.
 
After 28 posts, there have been only two mentions of living GA pilots who were sued, where the poster knew the defendant. Both were second-hand stories: the instructor that flyingron knows, and my dad 50 years ago. And the latter case was dropped.

I get the impression that living GA pilots are seldom sued.
 
If you read the faa accident reports each month and ponder the stupid decisions GA pilots make you know there have to be lawsuits by survivors. Many of these crashed planes are flown by supposed professional pilots! Usually weather gets them but some run out of gas or are simply in an aircraft that's gotten way ahead of them. Many more are flown by recent IFR rated pilots who come unglued when the reality of what they've blundered into becomes apparent and they kill themselves and often others.
 
NoHeat said:
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I get the impression that living GA pilots are seldom sued.
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bflynn said:
Maybe that's because we never mess up? ;):rolleyes::dunno::rofl:
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I think that it has more to do with the fact that there are very few GA accidents to begin with. Then you have to have a GA accident where someone other than the pilot and his immediate family was injured. Then you have to have it where the pilot survived so you can ask, although I suppose if you could ask the personal representative of the dead pilot whether the estate was sued.

To be honest, I don't know that I can name anyone that I have known in my personal life (as opposed to clients) who was sued for driving a car and causing an accident. Most people don't broadcast it to everyone when they do get sued.
 
PPC1052 said:
I think that it has more to do with the fact that there are very few GA accidents to begin with. Then you have to have a GA accident where someone other than the pilot and his immediate family was injured. Then you have to have it where the pilot survived so you can ask, although I suppose if you could ask the personal representative of the dead pilot whether the estate was sued.

To be honest, I don't know that I can name anyone that I have known in my personal life (as opposed to clients) who was sued for driving a car and causing an accident. Most people don't broadcast it to everyone when they do get sued.
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There are very few GA accidents to begin with?! You ever read the monthly accident reports? There are not only quite a few but many involving fatalities! Seeing as we are the most litigious country in the civilized world , with lousy lawyers bringing lousy and costly suits, I would imagine, in the last say thirty- fourty years there have been plenty of lawsuits involving GA aircraft.
 
Professional pilots don't have any money. Most aircraft owners had money at one point in time, but then they bought a plane. So unless the pilot/owner happens to have significant non-exempt assets, suing may not be practical or economical.
 
Jimmy cooper said:
There are very few GA accidents to begin with?!
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Compared to car accidents....yes most definitely. The odds of running into someone who has been in a car accident are far higher than knowing someone who has been in or even knows someone who has been in a plane crash.

As a result of the numbers, I guarantee you that there have been far more lawsuits and out of court settlements over car accidents than airplane accidents.
 
I do know of a sailplane operation that was sued after a pilot(never met him) screwed up and killed his paying passenger. Pilot survived, no idea if he was named in the suit, probably was but not where the gold comes from.
 
Jimmy cooper said:
There are very few GA accidents to begin with?! You ever read the monthly accident reports? There are not only quite a few but many involving fatalities! Seeing as we are the most litigious country in the civilized world , with lousy lawyers bringing lousy and costly suits, I would imagine, in the last say thirty- fourty years there have been plenty of lawsuits involving GA aircraft.
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Really? Compared to the number of car accidents? I am talking total numbers. Not accident rate or accidents per mile/hour, or some other pro rata number. Total accidents. How many GA accidents were there this morning in your state? How many car accidents were there this morning in your state? You could take all of the GA accidents in the entire country in one month, and it probably wouldn't total the total car accidents that occurred in an average city in one day.
 
One question I would like to ask is:

"If you were killed while PIC of general aviation airplane, was your estate and/or family sued?"
 
JimNtexas said:
One question I would like to ask is:

"If you were killed while PIC of general aviation airplane, was your estate and/or family sued?"
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There are to many variables to answer this question accurately.
 
PPC1052 said:
Really? Compared to the number of car accidents? I am talking total numbers. Not accident rate or accidents per mile/hour, or some other pro rata number. Total accidents. How many GA accidents were there this morning in your state? How many car accidents were there this morning in your state? You could take all of the GA accidents in the entire country in one month, and it probably wouldn't total the total car accidents that occurred in an average city in one day.
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You insist on going off on an unrelated tangent! We are not speaking of auto accidents at all. They do not enter the discussion! We are speaking of GA aircraft accidents and how often people are sued as a result of them. We know that GA fatalities far exceed airline fatalities and usually, usually, if the pilot, dead or alive is insured a passenger or their relatives will sue if injury or death occurs. Try to keep focused on what the op brought up ! It's also easy to look up plus how often survivors sue aircraft manufactures for real or imagined sins. This has put most U.S. Aircraft manufacturers out of business!
 
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