Los Angeles Aviation Accident Lawyer

Type of Flight

Commercial Carriage, Charter, and General Aviation

The operating rule changes which federal requirements applied, and which limitation regimes are live.

Where the aircraft sits

Evidence

Five Layers, and Only the First Waits

The physical evidence sits under federal control at first. Everything else runs on the claimant’s clock.

Reconstruction is done by retained professionals, independently: airframe and powerplant engineers, metallurgists, flight operations and human factors analysts, meteorologists, economists. Each opinion still has to satisfy the court.

Who Is Responsible

Aircraft, Operator, Maintenance, Manufacturer

Four links, four bodies of law. More than one can be liable at once.

What still has to be proved

None of it follows automatically. A regulatory violation is not liability: where it caused the harm California treats it as a rebuttable presumption of negligence, and causation still has to be proved. Evid. Code 669. Negligent maintenance is never assumed from a failure, and carrier liability is never automatic. The instruction sets a duty of “the highest care and the vigilance of a very cautious person” while saying a common carrier “does not guarantee the safety of its passengers.” Status goes to the jury where the facts are disputed. CACI 901, 902.

Claims against a manufacturer

A product liability claim can rest on a manufacturing defect, a design defect or a failure to warn. CACI 1201, 1203, 1204, 1205. In aircraft design the consumer expectation test is usually unavailable, because the trade-offs sit outside everyday experience, so risk-benefit governs. Soule v. General Motors Corp. (1994) 8 Cal.4th 548. Not every supplier whose part was aboard is exposed: a component maker answers for its own defective part, or for substantial participation in the integration that caused the defect. CACI 1208.

Government Defendants

Two Sovereign Regimes, Two Different Clocks

A claim against the United States runs under the Federal Tort Claims Act. A claim against a California public entity runs under the Government Claims Act. They are separate procedures on different clocks, and the federal one is not the state one.

Neither route is easy. The discretionary function exception removes claims based on the exercise of discretion, and the Supreme Court applied it to the FAA’s certification and spot-check program. 28 U.S.C. 2680(a); United States v. Varig Airlines, 467 U.S. 797 (1984). It does not reach conduct where a rule “specifically prescribes a course of action for an employee to follow.” Berkovitz v. United States, 486 U.S. 531 (1988). Claims have been allowed where a controller failed to follow a mandatory directive. Ingham v. Eastern Air Lines, 373 F.2d 227 (2d Cir. 1967). Controller liability is never automatic.

Who staffs the facility matters. Many smaller airports run under the FAA Contract Tower Program, and a contractor is not the Government. 28 U.S.C. 2671; Alinsky v. United States, 415 F.3d 639 (7th Cir. 2005).

Where the Case Is Heard

State Court or Federal Court, and Why It Depends

Federal regulation of aviation is not federal court jurisdiction.

A negligence or product claim from a crash is generally a state-law claim. The Federal Aviation Act creates no federal cause of action for personal injury. Martin v. Midwest Express Holdings, Inc., 555 F.3d 806, 808 (9th Cir. 2009). Preemption of the standard of care is a defense, and a defense creates no federal question. A case reaches federal court on an independent basis.

A defendant may remove within 30 days of service, but not on diversity where a properly joined defendant is a California citizen. 28 U.S.C. 1441(b)(2). Federal law does shape the standard of care: where the FAA has issued pervasive regulations it supplies the standard, and where it has not the California standard applies. Martin, 555 F.3d at 811. California law still governs breach, causation, damages and remedy. Gilstrap v. United Air Lines, 709 F.3d 995 (9th Cir. 2013). The Airline Deregulation Act is economic and no bar on injury claims. 49 U.S.C. 41713(b)(1).

Right Now

What Helps in the First Weeks

1. 01Get care, and keep goingContinuity in the record is what proves the injury.
2. 02Stay away from the siteAccess is restricted and the scene can be hazardous.
3. 03Write down what you knowFlight details, times, who was aboard.
4. 04Keep the paperTickets, itineraries, receipts, messages.
5. 05Send preservation demandsIn writing, to operator, maintenance, manufacturer, insurers.
6. 06Take care with a recorded statementA carrier or insurer may ask early. It is not required.
7. 07Do not sign a releaseA release for an early payment can end a bigger claim.
8. 08Check the clockA public entity claim can fall due in six months.

Your Options

How This Compares to Handling It Yourself

Three routes are open to someone hurt after an aircraft accident. They differ in who does the work, what gets investigated, and when it ends. Nothing below is a prediction.

Which route fits depends on facts often unsettled in the first weeks: what the investigation turns up, and which of the clocks runs shortest. A release signed before then is still a release.

Los Angeles

Airspace, Airports and Venue

Los Angeles International, Van Nuys, Hollywood Burbank, Long Beach, Santa Monica and Whiteman all work inside one basin, alongside police, news and air ambulance helicopters and the terrain of the San Gabriel and Santa Monica ranges. That geography decides which facility was working a flight, whether it is staffed by federal employees or a contractor, and whether an airport is run by a city or a county, which sets the claim regime and the deadline. It also affects venue. The office is in Sherman Oaks, Los Angeles County.

Questions

Frequently Asked Questions