A New Lawsuit

[New2Flying]

I was thinking about the WTC Lawsuits that are about to go to court. Now, I believe it may be impossible to sue the federal govt., or even your employer in some states. However, here is the question. What, if any kind of lawsuit, could airline employees file for A) the government supposedly having knowledge of the 9/11 attacks and not warning anyone. B) the contracted security companies that failed and let these idiots get through with their weapons.

The airline industry was severely affected by these attacks, 8500 pilots have been furloughed, not including the FA's, rampers, MX Techs, etc. Further, USAir has put a halt on their pension funding.

These are just thoughts coming to my head. You can file a lawsuit for anything and I am betting this would get some press. People have no idea the affect this has had on our industry - only the people that were harmed in the buildings and on the ground, because of the extensive press coverage.

Anyone out there have any ideas? As I said, this is NOT well thought out - it is too early here!

 

[cessna_driver2]

The only problem would be proving that the govt had prior knowledge. There is nowhere that says you can't sue the govt. But your going to have a very hard case stacked against you. Figuring that everything is so classified.

Take Pearl Harbor. Some information came out a few years back that the GOVT knew the Japanese were going to attack supposedly. It's been fifty years after the attack that this info has come out. Whose to say it's true.


Only time will tell.

 

[A Squared]

Well, a couple of thoughts:

I don't think that you *can't* sue the federal government, my understanding is that you *can* sue the federal government, but that the fed can decide whether it will allow itself to be sued by you, and guess what?, they rarely do allow the suit. I don't know the ins and outs, but I don't think it's a simple as you can or can't sue the government. I suspect that you wouldn't have much sucess with a suit for having knowledge and not warning people.

As for suing the security companies, it is my understanding that the takeover of the aircraft were carried out with objects which were perfectly legal to carry onto an airplane, at the time. So if boxcutters were legal to carry onto a plane, now can the security company be at fault for allowing that?

Lastly, it's not quite as simple as "the WTC attacks caused the slump in the industry" The slump was coming, the WTC attacks were a convenient scapegoat, especially as to allowed the airlines to use "force majure" clauses in thier contracts. Now we don't know how bad the slump would be without the Attacks, and we don't know how badly the attacks would have affected the airline industry if they had come at a time when the future was rosy in the airline industry, but it's not accurate to say that the airlines woes are caused solely by the attacks.