LITTLE ROCK — American Airlines will appeal all but one of five jury awards in lawsuits arising from a June 1, 1999, crash in Little Rock of Flight 1420.
"We are appealing only because we believe the jury awards are excessive, based on Arkansas case law and the expert testimony presented at these trials," said John Hotard, a spokesman who is based at American's Fort Worth headquarters.
The four cases, all of which were tried before U.S. District Judge Henry Woods:
ANNA LLOYD. She was among 19 Ouachita Baptist University students returning from a three-week singing tour of Europe. Her injuries centered on post-traumatic stress. Lloyd, 22, won a $6.5 million judgment on Oct. 12.
NANCY CHU. A jury awarded the 37-year-old Little Rock woman $5.7 million for her mental and physical injuries on April 18. But it rejected a punitive-damages claim based on her affair with an American Customer Service Relief Effort worker, although it did rebuke the airline for the worker's actions.
STEPHANIE MANUS. The Benton woman, then 28, and her two daughters, Lauren, 4, and Emily, 2, were returning from a visit with Manus' mother in Arizona. They won $3.3 million on April 27.
JOE RUSTENHAVEN. The Maumelle man's case centered on psychological damage resulting from a head injury. A jury awarded Rustenhaven $4.2 million on May 4 and gave his wife, who was not on the plane, $2 million for loss of consortium.
American has already paid another OBU singer, Kristin Maddox, the $11 million that a jury awarded on Aug. 24. Maddox was the most severely burned of 129 survivors. Eleven people, including the pilot, died in the crash.
The appeals will be heard by the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
If the panel overturns the verdicts, there will be no passenger qualified to seek punitive damages in a forthcoming trial against the airline. Woods has said that trial could begin in the fall.
All the plaintiffs' attorneys say they believe that is American's motivation for the appeals, but Hotard said he could not comment about that.
"I think they are attempting to use the power of the dollar to force these people to accept less and withdraw their claims for punitive damages. They are literally trying to squeeze these people to accept less," said Bob Bodoin, a Fort Worth attorney who represented Rustenhaven.
Maddox and Lloyd began their journey outside the United States, and Woods has ruled that a treaty, the Warsaw Convention, prohibits them from seeking anything beyond compensatory damages. Their attorneys appealed that decision, then withdrew the appeals for fear of clouding the other issues.
Chu, Manus and Rustenhaven have all reserved the right to seek punitive damages.
Two more cases were settled last week, bringing the number to about 110 of the 139 passengers on board. American has been paying more lately, up to 10 times what it paid survivors with similar injuries early on.
Of the passengers with cases still unsettled, only about five say they are committed to going to trial.
Of those who have gone to trial, only Maddox has been paid any money.
Additionally, Maddox is seeking pre-judgment interest from the date of the crash. Since she was a Ponca City, Okla., resident attending school in Arkansas, her attorneys argue that she should be governed by Oklahoma law, even though her case was tried in Arkansas. Oklahoma law allows the interest claim.
If Maddox wins her appeal, she would receive 8.73 percent interest on her $11 million award for the 15 months between the crash and the verdict. That would amount to more than $1 million.
In its appeal of the Lloyd verdict, American contends that Charlie Fuller, Lloyd's music professor and chaperone on the flight, was not qualified to testify about her career chances with her injuries, which are primarily psychological.
It also argues that Lloyd's psychiatrist was not qualified to say she had suffered a brain injury in the crash, because he'd not ordered any conclusive tests. International passengers cannot claim psychological damages unless it can be proved that they stemmed from a physical injury.
In the Chu case, the airline contends the verdict is excessive and that Woods made errors during the trial.
While preliminary motions do not expressly address it, attorneys involved expect American to make an issue of a jury foreman's note to Woods asking who would pay court costs and attorney fees. Chu had to pay her attorney regardless of the outcome, and there was speculation after the trial that the jury might have padded her award to offset some of that expense.
American calls the Manus award excessive because, it contends, she and her daughters got out of the plane quickly with only minor injuries, that their recovery is on course and that their prognosis is good. During the trial, the airline contended that damages should have totaled no more than $1 million.
During his trial, Rustenhaven testified that he was haunted by visions of a man in black and tormented by snakes and wild cats. American argued that he was suffering from a "facticious disorder" unrelated to the crash -- that is, he reveled in being sick. Its attorneys suggested to the jury that Rustenhaven should get no more than $1.8 million.
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