MH370 Family Member Files RM5bil Lawsuit Against MAS And Boeing

An Illinois judge yesterday dismissed a US law firm's motion to obtain evidence of possible design and manufacturing defects from Boeing Co and Malaysia Airlines in connection with the disappearance of flight MH370 three weeks earlier.

themalaysianinsider.com

Cook County Judge Kathy Flanagan also threatened to impose sanctions against Ribbeck Law Chartered, citing previous instances where the Chicago-based law firm had "improperly brought" petitions, such as last year's Asiana Airlines plane crash in San Francisco.

While seeking information about an accident before filing a lawsuit is allowed in Illinois courts when those who may be at fault aren’t known, the procedure isn’t otherwise permitted, Flanagan said. The rules allow such discovery “for the sole purpose of ascertaining the identity of one who may be liable in damages,” she said. The Ribbeck firm, the judge said, already knew that because she threw out two-such filings last year, one of them after an Asiana Airlines Inc. jet crashed upon landing at San Francisco International Airport.

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"Despite these orders, the same law firm has proceeded, yet again, with the filing of the instant petition, knowing full well that there is no basis to do so," Flanagan said Monday. "Should this law firm choose to do so, the court will impose sanctions on its own motion."

Several U.S. aviation lawyers and experts called the Ribbeck filing premature and a publicity stunt, since the details of the plane's disappearance were still largely unknown. Justin Green, a lawyer with competitor aviation law firm Kreindler & Kreindler, said the filing was "nothing short of outrageous." "Without plane wreckage, victims' bodies and any substantial evidence of cause or potential motive, there is simply no way to determine liability at this point in the investigation, and any legal counsel should recognize that," he said in a statement on Monday.

nst.com.my

Family members of the victims of the ill-fated Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 are filing an RM4.95bil suit against Boeing and Malaysia Airlines in the United States.

Chicago-based Ribbeck Law has filed a petition on behalf of Januari Siregar, whose son was on the Malaysia Airlines flight.

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The filing in Chicago asks a judge to order Malaysia Airlines and Chicago-based Boeing to turn over documents related to the possible "negligence" that caused the Boeing 777 to crash, including any documentation about the chances of "fatal depressurisation" in the cockpit.

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The petition is seeking to obtain the identity of manufacturers of various plane components and the company or person who last inspected the fuselage and provided maintenance. Kelly said additional pleadings will be filed against other potential defendants in the days to come.

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The petition was meant to secure evidence of possible design and manufacturing defects that may have contributed to the disaster, the law firm said.

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The petition for discovery was filed in a Cook County Circuit Court in Chicago on behalf of Januari Siregar — whose son, Indonesian-born Firman Chandra Siregar, was aboard MH370 when it mysteriously disappeared during what should have been a routine flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, according to a copy of the filing obtained by NBC News.

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Monica Kelly, the lead lawyer from Ribbeck Law, said the firm, which specialises in aviation law, were approached by family members from China and Indonesia. Of the 239 people onboard MH370, 154 were China nationals, 49 Malaysians, and seven Indonesians.

The law firm said it expected to represent families of more than half of the 226 passengers on board the flight, but declined to give details on how many families had agreed to be represented in the case.

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“We believe that both defendants named are responsible for the disaster of Flight MH370,” said Monica Kelly, lead lawyer on the case.

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Manuel Von Ribbeck, of Ribbeck Law, said they were 100% confident of winning the suit. He explained that was because in the eyes of the law, passengers are never at fault, and it was merely a matter of ensuring the family were compensated fully. Ribbeck said the coverage for compensation was about US$1.5bil (RM4.95bil), and the firm would demand the full amount be paid.

"We are going to be filing the lawsuits for millions of dollars per each passenger based on prior cases that we have done involving crashes like this one," the firm's head of aviation litigation, Monica Kelly, told reporters in Kuala Lumpur.

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For the purpose of the suit, the firm is assuming the passengers are all deceased, based on the Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak's announcement. "We hope that miracles can happen. But based on the data we've seen so far, it does not look good for the flight and her passengers," said Ribbeck.

Though both Boeing and Malaysian Airlines were named in the filing, the focus of the case would be on Boeing, Ribbeck's lawyers said, as they believed that the incident was caused by mechanical failure.

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"Our theory of the case is that there was a failure of the equipment in the cockpit that may have caused a fire that rendered the crew unconscious, or perhaps because of the defects in the fuselage, which had been reported before, there was some loss in the cabin pressure that also made the pilot and co-pilot unconscious," Monica Kelly, head of Global Aviation Litigation at Ribbeck Law, said.

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"That plane was actually a ghost plane for several hours until it ran out of fuel." Kelly said the conclusion was made based on previous incidents, dismissing the possibilities of hijacking or pilot suicide.

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Kelly said lawyers are asking a judge to order Boeing to provide the names of companies that manufactured the locator beacon, the electric components, batteries and fire alarm systems, the emergency oxygen generators and those who last inspected the aircraft's fuselage.

3news.co.nz

The law firm is also seeking from Malaysian Airlines the identities of people with information about the training of the crew; their physical and psychological evaluations; and the security practices of the airline.

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The most recent lawsuit was in January this year by a group of passengers, represented by Ribbeck Law, who were aboard an Asiana Airlines flight that crash-landed in San Francisco on July 6 last year, where three people were killed and more than 180 others hurt.

In its corporate self-portrait, Ribbeck Law boasts of its success at obtaining compensation for the families of victims of aviation disasters. The National Transportation Safety Board complained after the crash landing of Asiana Flight 214 in San Francisco last year that some attorneys may have violated a US law barring uninvited solicitation of air disaster victims in the first 45 days after an accident.

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