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发帖数: 32828 | 1 (08-01) 14:50 PDT SAN FRANCISCO -- A Chinese university professor seriously
injured in the July 6 crash of Asiana Airlines Flight 214 has sued the
carrier in federal court - thanks to a quirk that makes him one of the few
Chinese or South Korean citizens on the flight able to bring a potentially
lucrative case in the United States.
Zhengheng Xie, a professor at Shanghai University, was flying to visit his
son in the South Bay when the Boeing 777 crashed at San Francisco
International Airport. Three Chinese schoolgirls were killed and about 180
people were injured, including Xie, who broke his spine and remains in a
body cast, said his attorney, Michael Verna of Walnut Creek.
Xie and his wife, Wei Song, are seeking $5 million from the South Korean
airline in damages for pain and suffering, according the suit, which was
filed Monday in U.S. District Court in San Francisco. His wife was not on
the flight.
Most of Xie's 290 fellow passengers were South Korean or Chinese citizens.
They will be able to sue in their home countries, but damage awards there
are harder to come by and less lucrative than what plaintiffs can obtain in
the United States, legal experts said.A 1999 international treaty lays out
the rules of when and where crash victims can sue airlines, said Mike Danko,
a Redwood Shores attorney who has represented plaintiffs in lawsuits
against airlines for 15 years.
"There are five places where you can bring a suit if you've crashed in an
international airliner," Danko said. "One, where the airline has its
principal place of business, or, two, where the business is incorporated. In
this case those would be Korea.
"You can also file suit where the ticket was purchased, in the home country
of the injured person or at the place of the trip's final destination,"
Danko said.
Xie does not have U.S. citizenship, but his son bought his plane ticket in
the United States, Verna said. That gives him the right to sue the airline
here, the attorney said.
Passengers who bought round-trip tickets in Seoul or Shanghai, Flight 214's
city of origin, won't be able to sue here even though the plane was landing
in the United States. With a round-trip ticket, passengers' final
destination was actually Shanghai or Seoul, not San Francisco.
"That's why basically the Chinese and South Koreans are screwed," Danko said
. The attorney is representing six victims of the air crash, but has yet to
file any lawsuits, he said.
In the United States, the families of the three Chinese girls who died could
expect to receive millions of dollars in a lawsuit against the airline,
Danko said. In China, they'll be lucky to get $20,000 apiece.
"For a lot of people, it is not going to even be worth it to sue" in South
Korea or China, Danko said. "It is either here or nowhere."
Foreign crash victims can sue airplane manufacturer Boeing in a U.S. court,
and some have already done so, Verna said. But such suits are difficult to
win.
"Plaintiffs that sue Boeing have the burden of proving that case," Verna
said. "In the suits against the airline, the burden is on Asiana has to
prove it was not negligent."
The majority of passengers, Danko said, "have no remedy against the airline.
The overwhelming number of people on this flight will have nothing, will
have no remedy whatsoever." |
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