The Briefing Room
General Category => National/Breaking News => Topic started by: mystery-ak on May 12, 2020, 04:18:19 pm
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Pilot's brother claims passengers at fault in fatal Kobe Bryant crash
By Justine Coleman - 05/12/20 12:04 PM EDT
The brother of the pilot in the fatal helicopter crash that killed former NBA star Kobe Bryant, his daughter and seven others claimed in court documents filed Friday that the passengers were at fault and negligent.
Attorneys for Berge Zobayan, who is the successor in interest for the late pilot Ara Zobayan, said in Los Angeles Superior Court filings that the injuries and deaths of passengers were “directly caused in full or in part by the negligence or fault of plaintiffs and/or their decedent," CNN reported Monday.
Zobayan’s filing seeks to deny all claims from Vanessa Bryant’s wrongful death lawsuit filed in February, saying the passengers knew the risks involved with flying.
more
https://thehill.com/blogs/in-the-know/in-the-know/497333-pilots-brother-claims-passengers-at-fault-in-fatal-kobe-bryant
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Don't know about California, but in PA blaming the plaintiff(s) in response to a personal injury/wrongful death lawsuit is routine. I worked for attorneys who defended such lawsuits. When a complaint was filed, I would prepare the response. The response consisted of answers to each individual paragraph in the complaint; then there would be a separate section called "New Matter" where the defendant could assert his/her/its own version of events, and possibly a section for a counterclaim against the plaintiff and/or a crossclaim against any other defendants named in the lawsuit. I had dozens of standardized paragraphs to use and I would plug into the whichever ones the attorney told me to use. This was one of those routine paragraphs.
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The pilot was in error for taking off at the customers insistence.
Telling a customer NO is a difficult but necessary action.
The chopper could have remained there until the fog cleared.
Sure he may have lost a client but there would have been no
deaths nor lawsuits.