Testimony in suit against American ends

LITTLE ROCK — After nine days of testimony, lawyers on both sides of the lawsuit Little Rock woman Nancy Chu brought against American Airlines concluded Monday. The case will go to a federal jury today.

Testimony Monday, the second day of American's defense, was limited to two witnesses, a Louisiana doctor who says the Flight 1420 crash survivor need not be permanently disabled and a California economist who said the most Chu would lose in wages would be $402,679 if she were to remain disabled for three more years before returning to work, and to take a less demanding job than she'd had.

American has admitted liability for the June 1, 1999, crash in Little Rock. What's in dispute is the amount it should pay Chu for her injuries. The trial also includes a punitive-damages claim involving Jim Struthers, an American employee sent to care for Chu. He and Chu began an affair nine days after the crash.

Chu's lawyers say she sued American because Struthers violated her trust and because the company did not change its policies after it found out about the affair. Struthers, who was fired a year after the crash, admitted in trial testimony that he broke company rules by dating Chu.

The last testimony the jury heard Monday was a 40-minute videotaped excerpt from Chu's October 2000 deposition. The clip juxtaposed Chu's confident answers to questions about old friends, former neighbors, high-school buddies and former co-workers with her seemingly dazed responses to questions about Struthers and their affair.

Chu's lawyers have argued that the former stockbroker's sales assistant is brain-damaged, having hit her head when the plane crashed. American's expert, Dr. Paul Balson, said Chu's symptoms could suggest brain damage, but that the more probable diagnosis was that she was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and depression, and was not receiving the integrated care she needed to recover quickly from either.

Balson, former vice chancellor of the Louisiana State University School of Medicine, said he would be more inclined to believe Chu had serious brain injury if she were unable to relax and converse easily with people. He said he found her to be warm and credible in interviews and during psychological testing.

While Balson did not discount the findings of Chu's physician that she might have brain damage, he emphasized that such a diagnosis would be more valid if Chu were taken off all of her post-crash medications for 30 to 45 days and then retested.

Balson also said it was inappropriate to ask if the crash had hurt Chu so badly that she couldn't hold a job again. "There's no need to push the work issue now," he said.

Blaine F. Nye, a Menlo Park, Calif., economist and a former Dallas Cowboys linebacker, testified that if Chu were to return to her previous job or a comparable job in two years, she would be owed only $198,549 in lost wages; if she were to return to a similar job in four years, it would be $253,314.