Impact (59 page)
Authors: Stephen Greenleaf
“You're telling me I really have lost my consortium, aren't you?” When he doesn't answer, she begins to cry. “I thought if we won the case everything would be all right.”
“It doesn't seem to work that way. At least not for me.”
She sniffs and tries to smile. “I rememberâeven when you win, you lose.”
He searches for words that are closer to the truth, at least the truth that is true that instant, but finally gives up. “At least you have three million green things to remember me by.”
“Two.”
“Three.”
“Your fee, remember? Thirty-three percent.”
“I already got my fee,” he says, and rests his head against the dewy sadness of her cheek.
AFTERWORD
The compromise in California's “tort-reform wars” that was reached at Frank Fat's restaurant in Sacramento on September 10, 1987, proved short-lived: A year later, six additional reform efforts appeared on the California ballot. They ranged from a measure sponsored by legal and consumer groups to roll back insurance rates, to various insurance-industry proposals (backed by a $60 million ad campaign) to establish a “no-fault” tort system in the state and limit attorneys' fee percentages in injury actions to 10 percent of any recovery in excess of $100,000.
On November 8, 1988, California voters defeated all but a Ralph Nader-sponsored proposal that reduced auto-insurance rates in California by 20 percent, and subjected future rate increases to approval by the state insurance commissioner. Several major insurance companies immediately threatened to cease doing business in California and petitioned the California Supreme Court to stay enforcement of the measure pending a ruling on its constitutionality. On May 4, 1989, the court upheld virtually all aspects of the measure, but allowed insurance companies to avoid the mandated rate reductions by showing they would reduce profits below a “fair and reasonable return.” The impact of the measure upon consumers remains unclear.
This time, the FAA did not withdraw its proposal to require the installation of fire-blocking materials in aircraft interiors, and the rule went into effect in the summer of 1988. The new materials were quickly credited with saving lives, most prominently in the crash of Delta flight 1141 shortly after takeoff in Dallas on August 31, 1988, in which 13 of the 108 people on board were killed. (All thirteen survived the crash but perished from smoke inhalation. A fourteenth victim died from burns suffered while trying to pull his wife from the wreckage.)
In June 1988, the FAA completed its transition to a new Host computer system at twenty traffic control centers throughout the nation. The system is expected to provide increased speed and reliability, thereby reducing the frequency of near-midair collisions. It is said to operate for twenty thousand hours without an interruption of more than ten seconds.
Frustrated with the lack of progress in other areas of aviation safety, Congress amended the Airport and Airway Improvement Act to require the FAA to increase the number of certified traffic controllers; to develop, certify, and deploy the TCAS II collision avoidance system within four years; to study ways in which aircraft equipment and design could be improved to minimize the danger of fire and explosion; and to consider requiring seats in commercial aircraft to be strengthened to meet the best available testing criteria for crashworthiness. The FAA was directed to submit monthly reports to Congress on the status of those undertakings.
On March 23, 1988, the day the SurfAir trial began, the attorneys general of California, New York, and several other states filed suit against five major liability insurers, alleging they had illegally combined and conspired with Lloyd's of London to artificially induce the so-called liability insurance crisis in order to reduce or eliminate their obligation to insure public agencies and nonprofit organizations. The defendants denied the allegations. The suit is pending.
On October 27, 1988, the Rand Corporation released a study that concluded that relatives of persons killed in air crashes were paid less than half the economic loss they suffered as a result of the loss of their loved ones' future earnings. (If amounts awarded for pain and suffering were deducted from the recovery, survivors received only 31 percent of their economic loss.) The study also found that aviation attorneys typically collected less than one third of the recovery in such cases, substantially less than in tort cases in general.
Trade associations for the airframe manufacturers and the airlines, which had funded a portion of the study, termed it misleading.
AUTHOR'S NOTE
I would like to acknowledge my debt to the following authors for works that have been particularly helpful: Moira Johnston,
The Last Nine Minutes
(New York: William Morrow & Co., 1976); Paul Eddy, Elaine Potter, and Bruce Page,
Destination Disaster
(New York: Quadrangle/The New York Times Book Co., 1976); Jerome Greer Chandler,
Fire & Rain
(Austin: The Texas Monthly Press, 1986); William Norris,
Willful Misconduct
(New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1984); Carl Solberg,
Conquest of the Skies
(Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1979); Anthony Sampson,
Empires of the Sky
(New York: Random House, 1984); David Nolan, “Airline Safety: The Shocking Truth,”
Discover
, Vol. 7, No. 10, October 1986; Ralph Nader, “The Corporate Drive to Restrict Their Victims' Rights,” 22
Gonzaga Law Review
15 (1986); Symposium: “Alternative Compensation Schemes & Tort Theory,” 73
California Law Review
548 (1985); Judith Hooper and Dick Teresi,
The 3-Pound Universe
(New York: Dell Publishing Company, 1986); and Richard M. Restak, M.D.,
The Brain
(New York: Bantam Books, 1984). All errors of fact or interpretation, and all adaptations and abbreviations, are entirely my own.
I would also like to acknowledge my use of materials available from the National Head Injury Foundation, and to recognize the members and staff of the Subcommittee on Investigation and Oversight of the House Committee on Public Works and Transportation, Ninety-eighth Congress, whose hearings generated much of the information incorporated in Part Three.
I am also grateful for the contributions of Gerald C. Sterns and Elizabeth Walker Sterns, attorneys-at-law, and for the encouragement of my agent, Esther Newberg, who has been supportive from the beginning. Finally, I wish to thank my editor, Doug Stumpf, whose burden was far greater than it should have been.
About the Author
Stephen Greenleaf (b. 1942), a former lawyer and an alumnus of the prestigious Iowa Writer's Workshop, is a mystery and thriller writer best known for his series of novels starring PI John Marshall Tanner. Recognized for being both literate and highly entertaining, Greenleaf's novels often deal with contemporary social and political issues.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1989 by Stephen Greenleaf
Cover design by Drew Padrutt
ISBN: 978-1-5040-2764-9
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