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Translation – Portuguese into English
Brazilian Newspaper: VALOR ECONÔMICO
Published in São Paulo – Distributed nationally
Date: 10/24/2007
Page: E1 - Section: Legislation & Taxes
FAMILIES FILE LAWSUITS IN THE USA AGAINST TAM
Sergio Bueno
From Porto Alegre
The American law firm Motley Rice, which represents plaintiffs internationally, has begun to file lawsuits in the Circuit Courts of Florida, in the United States, seeking indemnity for the families of the ones killed in the accident with Tam Flight 3054 in July at Congonhas Airport in São Paulo. The first lawsuit, on behalf of Carlos Camargo, the son of the President of the Union for Retired Public Servants for the State of Rio Grande do Sul, Julia Camargo, was filed this month and at least four others will be filed in the following weeks.
According to attorney Don Migliori, the American justice system is not only faster, with resolutions reached within three years or less, but also the values reached are higher than the ones granted by the Brazilian courts. “In Brazil’s system of compensation, the estimations are minimal”, affirms the attorney, who met with the families of victims of Flight 3054 in Porto Alegre last weekend. The accident killed 199 people on the plane and on land, and the next lawsuits will be filed on behalf of the families of victims Kátia da Luz Escobar, Rosângela de Ávila Severo, Ricardo Almeida, Larissa and Bruno Ferraz.
“In the United States, the compensation can be three or four times higher than in Brazil”, affirms Julio César Colling, from Porto Alegre’s law firm Aragão and Colling, who is working as Motley Rice’s co-counsel. He mentioned, as a reference, the decision of the Superior Tribunal of Justice (STJ) in September, which rejected TAM’s appeal against the ordered judgment of R$ 1,2 million [approx. US$ 670K] to the widow and children of a victim in a accident which occurred in 1983 in São Paulo.
Florida’s courts were chosen by the law office because all defendants have representation/interests in that American state, including TAM, which has a training center in Miami. The other defendants are Airbus SAS, maker of the A320 crashed in Congonhas; Airbus North America, which provides training for the crew; Goodrich Corporation, maker of the reversers, and Pegasus Aviation, owner of the aircraft leased to the Brazilian airline.
According to Migliori, the thesis is that all of these companies were negligent in their duties and were responsible for failure in [complying with] basic safety procedures, including maintenance, training of the crew, and use of a defective reverser on a slippery runway on a rainy night. For the attorney, under these circumstances the disaster was preventable and there were at least three precedents, in 1998, 2002 and 2004 when three Airbus A320 aircraft suffered accidents when landing in the Philippines, USA and Taiwan, respectively, because of an inoperative thrust reverser. Three people died in the first accident. There were no fatal victims in the other ones.
Once the cases are filed, the American court will define the “convenience of the forum” in order to decide if the case will be judged there or will return to Brazil, explained attorney Migliori. According to him, Motley can bring up the delays in the Brazilian judicial system in order to guarantee the permanence of the lawsuit in the United States.
“We have the argument that justice delayed is justice denied,” he mentions.
Among Motley Rice’s most high profile cases is the civil suit settled in 1998, which guaranteed an indemnity of US$ 246 billion, paid by the Tobacco industry to American states over the course of 25 years. The law office also represents families of victims and survivors of the September 11 attacks in the United States against the airlines which had failed in providing security for the flights.
In Brazil, Motley defended 9 families, representing part of the 33 killed in an accident occurring in 2004, with a Rico Linhas Aéreas’s plane, in the Amazon. The lawsuit cited makers Pratt&Whitney (engines); Hamilton Sundstrand (propellers); and Embraer and the insurer Lloyds; it was filed in Florida that same year and returned to Brazil, but between the end of 2006 and beginning of 2007 agreements were reached between the parties.
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