Jim Logajan wrote:
Ron Wanttaja wrote:

What I find strange is that the four defendant companies had allegedly
agreed to pay $200,000 total to settle the suit, but then reneged.
Remarkably low, for a case involving death, even less if the
settlement was to be split between the four companies.

If the plaintiff's claim about the previous agreed settlement is true,
it sounds like there's some financial problems among the
defendants....

Could be - but here's another possibility: I notice the story claims the
companies agreed to the payments on April 20, but Zenith didn't get the
results of formal flutter analysis till July. So their legal advisors
probably made the initial decision under some uncertainty. Or they switched
legal teams in the mean time and have gotten alternate advise.

No matter what formal analysis they have done, the plaintiff's lawyers
will present their own experts who will, of course, come to an alternate
conclusion. I understand the British CAA is still going to require
changes. This indicates that not everyone is convinced, and you can bet
the plaintiff will find some distinguished analyst to testify in their
favor.

Also, perhaps they may also be seeing other lawsuits coming up so decided
that nothing was to be gained from settling this lawsuit. In fact they may
now feel they can win this lawsuit and thereby put the damper on anything
that follows.

Risky move. They had one case, at least, settled. Now the plaintiffs
are probably madder than heck, and the revised lawsuit includes punitive
damages as well. The original out-of-court settlement wouldn't have set
a legal precedent, but a loss in court will.

Ron Wanttaja