Legal Complications Loom for Families of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370: WSJ

The Wall Street Journal

By  Chester Yung And Jake Maxwell Watts

March 27, 2014 6:08 p.m. ET

The circumstances of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370—with its lack of physical evidence and numerous potential jurisdictions—are likely to make legal action especially complicated for families seeking compensation in the courts.

Regardless of what caused the plane's disappearance, family members of the passengers and crew can bring legal action against Malaysia Airlines for compensation, legal experts say. One U.S. law firm has already filed a petition in a U.S. court on behalf of the relative of a Flight 370 passenger seeking information from the airline and Boeing Co.  —a precursor of what the firm said was a planned wrongful-death lawsuit.

But the fact that investigators have yet to find the Boeing 777, and the possibility that it could take a long time to locate items such as the plane's so-called black box—which contains digital flight data and recordings of cockpit conversation—could make it difficult to move forward with legal action, some lawyers said.

In a case like this "you need a lot of information and documents to back up the claim because it involves so many people," said Lee Chooi Peng, partner at Justin Voon Chooi & Wing, a law firm in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, that handles negligence cases. "To substantiate the claim I think a lot more information and documents are required."

Families who want to litigate will need to determine in which country to file any lawsuits. "The courts of different countries have very different views of what compensation is appropriate," said Mike Danko, a California attorney with law firm Danko Meredith, which has represented crash victims and their families in previous air disasters.

The Montreal Convention, an international treaty governing air disasters to which Malaysia, China and the U.S. are signatories, leaves the amount of compensation to the courts of each country where the claims are made, though airlines are strictly liable for compensation to an equivalent of around US$174,800 per passenger.

Aviation lawyers and legal experts say that families of crash victims would be best off financially by suing via U.S. courts, given the nation's track record of awarding large damages in air disasters.

Under the Montreal Convention, families can file claims at a U.S. court if the passenger was a U.S. resident, bought the ticket from the U.S. or ended his journey in the U.S. Apart from the three U.S. nationals aboard Flight 370, the likelihood that the flight's passengers could fit this category appears low, some lawyers say.

Families also could make claims in the U.S. against Boeing, the aircraft manufacturer, as well as other U.S.-based component makers for the Boeing 777, if it could be proven that the crash was caused by a design defect. That, however, is far from certain, and would take much longer to establish, especially as the flight remains missing.

Chicago-based Ribbeck Law Chartered filed a petition on Tuesday in the circuit court of Cook County, Ill., seeking information from Malaysia Airlines and Boeing, centered mostly on the identities of people who worked with the aircraft or crew of Flight 370, including those who trained the pilots.

Boeing has declined to comment on possible lawsuits. Malaysia Airlines said it had received a copy of the Ribbeck petition. "Our lawyers have been briefed and are on standby to deal with this although it has not yet been formally served," it said.

While Malaysia's government has said it believes all on board perished after the jet went down in the southern Indian Ocean, searchers haven't yet positively identified the plane's wreckage. Investigators also haven't determined a probable cause of the disappearance.

Courts in Malaysia, where the legal system is based on English common law, hold a more conservative view on negligence claims and compensation.

The multimillion-dollar awards for negligence suits in the U.S. are "not the trend under Malaysian law," said Jeremy Joseph, principal partner at Joseph & Partners, a maritime law firm based in Kuala Lumpur that has handled aviation cases. "That said, this is an unprecedented case and no doubt the courts would adjudicate based on applicable laws and principles," said Mr. Joseph.

Already, third parties have made some insurance payments, while Malaysia Airlines has made bridge payments to some families of around $5,000 per passenger, even as rescuers continue to look for the plane.

—Jason Ng contributed to this article.

Source:  http://online.wsj.com