Legal Cases Take Off After Southwest Engine Explosion

its first accident to result in a passenger's death. One woman died after shrapnel from a blown engine tour through a window about twenty minutes into flight from New York to Dallas on Tuesday. Southwest Chief executive Officer Gary Kelly had a message for the passengers. We will do all that we can to support them during this difficult time and the difficult days ahead. I'm immensely grateful there are no other reports of injuries, but truly this is a

tragic loss. Joining me is Ronald Goldman, head of the Aviation Disaster Litigation team at baum Headland Oursty and Goldman Ron The f a A says a broken fan blade caused the left engine to explode on the flight, and the NTSB found indications of metal fatigue caused by repeated bending what companies could be found responsible legally for this? Thank you for inviting me on. First, let me express my deep condolences for the loss of the life of

the passenger. UH. The company is responsible will be first of all Southwest Airlines as a common carrier. They are responsible for the safety of the flight and all of the equipment used on the flight. Then, obviously the engine manufacturer will bear responsibility as well. That may well be something that has to be sorted out between Southwest Airlines and the and the engine manufacturer, so they both will

bear responsibility at least. Now, what kind of damage control our south s ge Boeing and the insurance companies doing at this point, and are they coordinating with each other? Well, they usually do coordinate with each other. Their damage control has been to send condolences and to UH suggest that they are deeply concerned about the other passengers. Let it be clear that almost all normally constituted passengers suffered a

twenty two minute terror flight UH. They will bear the scars of this very likely for the rest of their lives. So that while we have one immense tragedy in the loss of life, we have others who will have suffered a great deal as well. So the coordination will be between all all of those parties and their insurance carriers. So do you think that CEO Kelly, who said he was grateful that there were no reports of serious injuries except for of course the tragic death, is ignoring the

post traumatic stress disorder. Well, I don't know that yet, but certainly he did express that they were concerned for the other passengers. I hope that they will take responsibility

for all of the injuries on this flight. We have often had to battle, uh with the airlines with respect to the injuries that they did not manifest themselves in physical injuries and uh so this is something that we have had to deal with for a very long time, actually ever since when a similar episode happened on United two thirty two, which was the case we handled. So this is not something that's completely new. And let me also suggest that there were really two failures on this flight.

There's not just the fan bail fan blade failure. There was also the failure of the design to contain that event. There's never supposed to be an escape of material from the airplane engine to the fuselage or wings of of the of the airplane. Uh, so this is a double failure that has to be considered not just the family, but also why wasn't it contained ron there was an incident with a Southwest flight, the same kind of airplane, the same kind of engine. In will that play into this?

Absolutely it will because that was the warning sign. You know, in aviation terms, these are parts that are never supposed to fail. The technical language would suggest that should only fail one in a billion times. Um. These are never supposed to fail. When you get a failure, uh, in one instance, you know that you have a problem, then the question is how do you go about attacking it? Uh. The suggestion that there was a an a D which is an airworthiness directive that was proposed in two thousand

and sixteen but ever really implemented. These are weak steps. There should have been alarm bells going off throughout the industry. We had a failure that should never have happened. Another one could happen. The mere fact that nobody died or was seriously injured on the first one, although there was terror, um should not have been a matter of complacency. It

should have been a matter of intense investigation. At that point, I want to go back for a moment to the other passengers, and post traumatic stress disorder, any other smaller injuries they may have suffered. So is there legal precedent for liability based on emotional trauma or injuries that are not serious, or is it just that the airlines settled. Well, let me first suggest that these other injuries are and

can be serious. Post Traumatic stress disorder is something that can affect a person's life deeply, uh and and for the rest of their lives, So we don't look at these injuries as being my or or insignificant. Secondly, yes,

there is. As a matter of fact, we are involved right now in a case involving Jet Blue where they had an engine fire when they took off from uh Long Leach Airport a couple of years ago, and they had an engine fire, had to return to the airport, and we have many passengers that we represent who suffered post traumatic stress disorder from that event and nothing blew up. So yes, there's there's considerable precedence for this. Every commercial plane in the sky is insured for anywhere from one

five billion to two point one billion dollars. So so how do they decide and is there a fight over this money. When the money is there, are the insurance companies looking to keep the cost down. Tell us how how it works when you're negotiating this. Well, yes, there's there was always a fight, and uh, we we produce information concerning each individual. There's there's no lumping of all people together. Every human being is different and suffers differently.

So we we put together the information that's necessary to demonstrate the magnitude of the loss for each individual. We presented to the appropriate parties uh, and they, together with their insurance carriers, then get their own evaluation. And then we always almost always differ uh certainly at the early stages UM and negotiate towards what we hope will be a solution that uh satisfies the needs of the passengers.

They're usually looking for something that will deliver to them a sense of justice that they have not been ignored and that there that their needs have been met. So that's what we try to deliver about thirty seconds here, rom So one quick question. Do these cases often land in a trial settlement? They rarely land in a trial. They almost always uh ultimately be unsettled. All right, Thank you so much, ron Ronald Goldman, head of the aviation

disaster litigation team at Boum Headland, Haristy and Goldman. President Trump addressed the job security of Special Counsel Robert Muller and the man who hired him, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, in response to a reporter's question yesterday. They've been saying I'm going to get rid of them for the last three months, four months, five months, and uh, they're still here. So we want to get the investigation over with, done with,

put it behind us. But is the Mueller investigation fading into the background of Trump's thoughts after the raid on the offices of his private attorney Michael Cohen joining me as former federal prosecutor Jeffrey Kramer a partner at the Berkeley Research Group. So, Jeff does Trump have more to fear from prosecutors in the Southern District of New York than he does from Mueller? Well, it certainly hits hits

closer to home. It's one thing to investigate, uh, connections or meetings with the Trump campaign or administration and people connected with the Russian government. That's that's one thing that's necessarily finite period of time. Once you start talking about his personal lawyer, and by all accounts, a guy has been fixing his problems for a decade. Uh. That is that's the Pandora's box, which should give the president moments

of pause. Judge kimball Wood is going to decide who will conduct the review of the documents hard drives in the cell phone data seize from Cohen's office by the FBI to determine whether they're protected under attorney client privilege. Should she depart from the regular practice of having a special team of prosecutors review the documents and the other things. Well, in in a normal case, that's what happens. Uh, you

know that paint team, if you will reviews it. If the was you know, the United States versus Jim Smith, Uh, that is probably what would happen. However, because of the heightened sensitivity here and certainly all the rhetoric back and forth, not really back and forth, which is one way from the White House, tours, the Department of Justice, and the FBI with all sorts of accusations, that is a safer way to go to have an independent third party review it.

And and that is not uncommon, It's just not as common as having a regular team team do it. So the prosecutors proposed three people who could fill the job of special Master. Those three are ex magistrate judges in the Federal Court in Manhattan. And the defense also put out four people, and one of them was Trump Confident, was a joint had a joint venture with Trump Confident Rudy Giuliani, another work for the Federal Prosecute who was now in charge of the case. Which of those stand

out to you? Uh, well, something you always want to look at. Any sort of bias, not even real bias, but by a sorty sort of connection with Giuliani or certainly the Trump organization any way, shape or form, probably precludes it. It's always safer to get a former federal judge, either a former distrecord judge or a former magistrate judge to oversee the process. Now that individual is obviously not

physically going through all the hard drives. They'll hire another company to do that, but it's under their auspices, and usually it's a former federal judge that's retained to do that. So might she pick someone completely different? Absolutely, the Delici is just some suggestions. It's always nice for federal judges, as the parties can agree on uh, someone that makes

life easier. But if the judge is not happy with any of the you know seven opportunities there, uh, then she can ask for either more names or go to someone she trusts Cohen has dropped his defamation lawsuits against BuzzFeed and Fusion GPS over that infamous Steel dossier. His lawyer said that given the recent of ends, which we know what he's referring to there, and the time and resources needed to prosecute those matters, we have dismissed the

matters despite their merits. Is there likely more to hit them dropping the case than what they're saying, Um, well, you don't want to get the civil case maybe state anyways, there's a criminal proceeding. You don't need to fight the

same battle on on many fronts. And you know, if it's if the defamation claim, you're obviously just looking for money, but the other side that gets to get into depositions and get discovery, and you don't need to fight that battle while you're also fighting the basically unlimited resources of the federal government. And just to confuse your battles. May he also not want to answer any questions in the litigation that might come up. And that's I mean, that's

what I meant by depositions. You know, you don't want to lend yourself to any sort of discovery in a civil case which could then be used against you in a far more important and die or proceeding where you could go to prison. So that's not even a close call. You just hit pause on that. Uh, you can bring it back later if things work out well for you. But like I said, that is not the biggest hurdle that Mr Cohen has right now is a defamation claim.

So when this first started, we heard a lot about how you know Cohen has has you know, has sworn that he would defend Tromp, And now we're hearing well, mighty flip, what's your opinion of that. Yeah, it's an interesting one. I mean, loyalty, it only goes so far, and once they start looking at the prison prison doors, loyalty tends to go out the window. However, this might be the exception. Uh, Cohen, from what we know now, is not looking at the kind of jail time that

a Manafort is looking at. Paul Manaford is seventy years old, and he's looking for anywhere from ten to fifteen years in a pretty rock solid case. If you read the indictment with eight figures of money laundering going back and forth. That's not what Cohen is looking at, you know. If it's a campaign finance regulation violation, it's uh, you know, the slap on the wrist for the most part. Maybe there's something more there, but he's probably not looking at

tremendous jail time. So he's at a fork in the road. If he cooperates, Uh, he's certainly going to be disbarred if he is please guilty, A partner commutation is out the door if he cooperates, And at the end of the day, he's a disbarred lawyer who has just lost his biggest client. So that's one path. The other path is not to cooperate. Take whatever hits coming your way. At the end of the day, you're still a disbarred lawyer. But then maybe you get a vice presidency, a Trump

organization and you know, retired to a golf course. You know. So that's that's what he's looking at right now. And what about we have about thirty seconds here, what about a pardon from Trump? Absolutely? You know, So if you don't cooperate, pardon is on the table. Uh, if you do cooperate, it's gone. So you know, not cooperating has a couple exit ramps there that gets you off scott free. You know. A pardoners one way, even if you're sentenced

to prison. A commutation which basically suspends that is another way. So there's a lot more opportunities. And Mr Cohen, who prides himself, all right, we've got leave it there, but I love the the exit ramp analogy. That's Jeffrey Kramer, a partner at the Berkeley Research Group. Thanks for listening to the Bloomberg Law Podcast. You can subscribe and listen to the show on Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud, and on Bloomberg dot com slash podcast. I'm June Brosso. This is Bloomberg