Pinnacle FA sues Pinnacle.

[DoinTime]

^^^^^
Tell that to the wives and families of sevicemen/women who have spent the last X months/years praying every night that their loved one would come home alive...

If you had out of state family living in Wisconsin you'd be thankful if they came home alive too.

 

[FN FAL]

...so in other words, he could still be tried for the same offenses with an "interest in justice" dismissal?

There's no such thing as an "interest in justice" dismissal. They simply dismissed the case...the reason they gave, was "interest of justice".

 

[MarineGrunt]

If you had out of state family living in Wisconsin you'd be thankful if they came home alive too.

Yeah, too bad I live in Utah. Nice try though!

 

[FN FAL]

Assume the maturity level displayed in the Pinnacle MO crash, read this article and for just a moment suppose to yourself several things.

One...no one saw him do it.

Two...did flight crews have it in for this guy?

Attendant charged with sabotaging jet safety equipment

By LARRY SANDLER
[email protected]

Posted: Dec. 24, 2004

A flight attendant has been charged with sabotaging emergency equipment on 14 Northwest Airlines commuter flights - including at least five from Milwaukee's Mitchell International Airport.

The sabotage delayed or canceled Northwest Airlink flights and even forced one New York-bound flight to turn back to Milwaukee in midair on Wednesday. No one was injured in the incidents.

FBI agents arrested Steven R. Hirtzinger, 23, of Chaska, Minn., Wednesday night after two incidents on flights from Mitchell. He appeared in federal court in Minneapolis on Thursday. The case moves to Milwaukee on Tuesday.

Hirtzinger is accused of tampering with oxygen tanks, breathing masks, fire extinguishers and other equipment on Northwest Airlink regional jets operated by Pinnacle Airlines of Memphis, Tenn. He has been suspended and banned from airports.

His attorney, Fred Bruno, said Hirtzinger will plead not guilty. Bruno noted that Hirtzinger was the one who reported most of the tampering.

But Pinnacle managers became suspicious when they noticed that nearly all of the sabotage occurred on flights where Hirtzinger was the sole flight attendant, according to the criminal complaint filed in federal court in Milwaukee.

The lone exception was an Aug. 24 flight from Minneapolis-St. Paul to Norfolk, Va., and Hirtzinger had worked on the last flight using that plane, the complaint says.

Acts of sabotage started Aug. 8 and continued through Wednesday, but they paused when Hirtzinger wasn't working, the complaint says. Pinnacle has inspected its entire fleet and found no other problems, airline spokesman Phil Reed said in a prepared statement.

According to the complaint, prepared by the Transportation Security Administration's Milwaukee office:

Once the pattern emerged, Pinnacle assigned a mechanic to inspect the emergency equipment on the jet to be used for Flight 2820 from Milwaukee to La Guardia Airport in New York City on Wednesday morning. The inspection found nothing wrong.

But before taking off with Hirtzinger aboard, the crew found the seals broken on the emergency breathing equipment for the pilots. After a delay, the airline decided the equipment was still usable, and the flight took off.

While in the air, however, the crew found an oxygen tank leaking and turned back to Milwaukee.

The plane passed another inspection and then took off for Minneapolis-St. Paul that afternoon. The complaint doesn't name the flight, but an airport schedule shows Flight 2816 is the only afternoon flight using a regional jet.
When that flight arrived, another mechanic inspected the jet and found the fire extinguisher disabled, even though the Milwaukee-based mechanic found it working before the plane left.

Previous incidents involved a Sept. 11 trip on Flight 2820; Flight 2822 from Milwaukee to La Guardia on Dec. 4; Flight 2828 from Milwaukee to Reagan National Airport in Washington, D.C.; and flights from Minneapolis-St. Paul to Omaha, Neb.; from Harrisburg, Pa., and Casper, Wyo., to Minneapolis-St. Paul; and from Indianapolis to La Guardia, the complaint said.

The complaint also mentions flights on Dec. 13, Dec. 14, Monday and Tuesday, but it doesn't identify them by route or number. Reed said he had no information on them.

Nothing in the complaint suggests a motive for the tampering, and Reed said he couldn't speculate on what the motive might be.

Because of the Christmas Eve holiday, authorities at the U.S. attorney's offices in Milwaukee and Minneapolis and the Milwaukee FBI office were not available for comment Friday. Agent Paul McCabe, an FBI spokesman in Minneapolis, referred questions to the Milwaukee FBI office.

 

[Lear70]

Assume the maturity level displayed in the Pinnacle MO crash, read this article and for just a moment suppose to yourself several things.

One...no one saw him do it.

Two...did flight crews have it in for this guy?

This wasn't just one or two flights. This guy was doing this over a couple MONTHS on the majority of his flying days, so you're telling me that you suspect that ALL of these crews who wrote him up were "out to get him"?

Incidentally, they caught him by setting up a sting with a couple of management F/A's preflighting the aircraft in the hub and ghost riding along.

There are any number of reasons it was dropped. Could be the check F/A's aren't willing to testify in Federal Court. Could be the situation was considered "entrapment". Could be lack of evidence and a "he said, she said" situation that makes the case worthless.

If this is so 'cut'n'dry', why would a Federal Prosecutor drop such serious charges in this day and age of [false] 'security induced' paranoia?

See above.

I remember it vividly. Every indication was that he was caught red-handed.

How can Pinnacle fight this when the charges were dropped?

Because Pinnacle can't make the employees who wrote him up and/or did the sting testify against him in a criminal case.

They CAN subpoenae AND TERMINATE a management employee (think MSP inflight supervisor / manager) for failing to appear in a civil case (no union protection). If ANY of those employees show up in court, as well as the Crew Comms and FSR's on the matter, all to testify against him, he's screwed.

If they can't get a good case together, they'll still go through the motions and see what direction the judge looks like he's leaning (no jury trial for civil litigation in MN, even at the Federal Court level). If the judge leans towards the F/A, the company will settle. If not, they won't.

And yes, I do know this first-hand, having been involved in 3 pilot termination civil suits against the company and actually testifying in Federal Court against Pinnacle about 2 years ago.

And Ppppaaaaalleeeeessssssseeeee don't mention 'our' military personals who were trying to get home to spend X-Mass with their loved ones. The non-military people were equally discomforted. Just because one serves in the military does not make one more or important than those who didn't serve...or less important for that matter!

Bunny

Do you intentionally try to piss people off or are you REALLY that far out in left field?

Are you REALLY trying to tell us you wouldn't give up your seat to an active military duty person trying to get home from being overseas and find a different way home yourself? After all, they're not any different than anyone else, including yourself, right?

If not, you should be ashamed of yourself.

Thanks to all the military service personnel for their service.

--------------------

Edited for foul language. KMDA

 

[AC560]

While the burden of proof is beyond a reasonable doubt in a criminal trial it is less in a civil trial (see OJ Simpson). Pinnacle should have sued him for loses related to his tampering.

 

[FN FAL]

(no jury trial for civil litigation in MN, even at the Federal Court level). If the judge leans towards the F/A, the company will settle. If not, they won't.

And yes, I do know this first-hand, having been involved in 3 pilot termination civil suits against the company and actually testifying in Federal Court against Pinnacle about 2 years ago.

MSP MN US District Court Jury FAQ question number 16

http://www.mnd.uscourts.gov/juryfaq.htm

16. Will I serve on civil or criminal trials?

<You may be selected for either type of trial.



​

 

[FN FAL]

To be fair to you, Lear 70, there are some types of Federal Civil cases that don't have a right to a jury trial. That may have been the type of trial you were at. However, this specifically says that if damages are to be decided, that the 7th amendment applies and there is a right to have a jury hear the case.

http://www.ajs.org/jc/juries/jc_right_overview.asp

Civil cases in federal court


In civil cases in federal court, the right to a jury trial is governed by the Seventh Amendment:

In Suits at Common Law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried to a jury, shall be otherwise reexamined in any Court of the United States, than according to the rules of the Common Law.

​

It is clear that the Amendment does not provide for jury trials in all federal civil cases because as of the time of the Amendment’s adoption in 1791 there were several kinds of cases that were not “Suits at Common Law,” like suits in equity or admiralty; those suits were not entitled to jury trials in 1791, and still are not. But subsequently many kinds of suits have come into being that did not exist at all in 1791, and the law/equity distinction was abolished in 1938. In this drastically changed legal landscape, it is sometimes difficult to decide what jury trial rights “shall be preserved” under the Seventh Amendment.

One rule of thumb is that if the suit seeks money damages—the traditional remedy under the common law—there is almost surely a right to a jury trial, while if the suit seeks only equitable relief—like an injunction—there almost surely is no right to a jury trial.

To read an excerpt from a legal journal summarizing the rules for determining whether a federal civil case is entitled to a jury trial, click here.

Since about 1980 there has been a question whether there is a “complex case” exception to the Seventh Amendment; that is, whether there are cases so complex that jurors cannot be expected to have the capacity to rationally decide them, so that submitting such cases to a jury would violate the Due Process Clause. While one federal circuit has held that a “complex case” exception exists, the Supreme Court has never directly ruled on the issue. The Supreme Court has, however, made several pronouncements related to the issue that do not clearly indicate how the Court would rule if the issue were presented to it. For a good discussion of this body of case law, see Jennifer F. Miller, Should Juries Hear Complex Patent Cases?, 2004 Duke L. & Technology Rev. 4.

 

[Lear70]

To be fair to you, Lear 70, there are some types of Federal Civil cases that don't have a right to a jury trial. That may have been the type of trial you were at. However, this specifically says that if damages are to be decided, that the 7th amendment applies and there is a right to have a jury hear the case.

That's interesting, I stand corrected. In the 3 cases I had direct involvement with, damages were being requested, so evidently the attorneys involved didn't WANT a jury trial (which I find interesting, given the basis of the suit and the aggregious violations by the company which settled in 2 out of 3 cases for high 6-figure amounts). I'd have thought the people suing the company would WANT a jury trial, but then again, I'm not an attorney, so I'm obviously missing something...

Since it never went to trial, there is no double-jeopardy from what I understand, and if the prosecutor gets new info or more people are willing to testify, maybe we'll see this guy on the hot seat eventually...

 

[FN FAL]

That's interesting, I stand corrected. In the 3 cases I had direct involvement with, damages were being requested, so evidently the attorneys involved didn't WANT a jury trial (which I find interesting, given the basis of the suit and the aggregious violations by the company which settled in 2 out of 3 cases for high 6-figure amounts). I'd have thought the people suing the company would WANT a jury trial, but then again, I'm not an attorney, so I'm obviously missing something...

Exactly, the 7th amendment applies especially in a federal court, because the US Constitution is their supreme delio. However, that right to jury trial does not mean you have to take that right.

Evidently, those people that you knew had legal representation and only those professionals could advise us as to why they didn't want to do their dance in front of a bunch of dummies...ahem, jury peer peoples. You can waive that right to jury trial in a federal criminal case as well. That's what Lopez did in the infamous United States v. Lopez. Thanks to that criminal, I can now live where I live without being arrested and convicted by the feds for an old Brady Bill law.

When I was researching this 7th amendment thing, there was MSP US court statistics for criminal and civil trials...according to last years statistics, your FA has about a 46% chance of winning his case. Jurors might not be so appreciative of his endeavor of getting money out of Pinnacle, so maybe his lawyer might not invoke the right to a jury trial either.

Thanks for making go look that stuff up...you guys don't know how much stuff you make me learn when I read these posts.

 

[igneousy2]

People with civil cases don't want jury trials because juries are too unpredictable. Especially in a case like this where his guilt or lack of guilt is a fine line that you would want someone thinking like a lawyer looking at your case. You would not want a bunch of paranoid fliers freaking out about the possiblity of a "terrorist" bringing airplanes down by breaking PBE seals and crackinig open O2 bottles.

I have to say that it does not seem there is much of a criminal case. Someone said he was caught red handed...in fact he was not. The case is highly circumstantial. Nobody has claimed to have video of him breaking PBE seals and cracking open the O2 bottles which is what a case like this would take to win...or several witnesses hearing him brag about doing it...etc. You sent in a mechanic that inspected everything before this flight attendant boarded. First, the prosecutor would have to have solid proof that the mechanic did in fact properly check the PBE seals...video...his word with a witness. Next, did anyone else have access to the PBE prior to the seal being found tampered with. Who found the seal broken, how do we know that he did not break it.

Not that it is impossible, but it is very difficult to get a conviction in a circumstantial case without any physical evidence supporting. The defense would simply say that...and we all know their is some truth to this...that the flight attendant was one of only a few that would report these discrepencies...and finally your honor...the defendent has been criticized for reporting discrepincies on Christmas Eve, as if the day of the year was a reason for not reporting a safety issue.

As far as Pinnacle not being able to make employees testify regarding someone they wrote up...that is BS, especially in a criminal case. Pinnacle has nothing to do with a criminal case...a criminal case by definition is a case against an individual brought by the government for violation of laws. The US Attorney (federal prosecutor) would subpoena those employees...they would be compelled to testify or face possible slammer-time when the judge finds them in contempt. Even if you raised a 5th ammendment issue (freedom from telling on yourself) the US Attorney would then grant you immunity...and then you would still be compelled to testify or face jail.

Pinnacle could still file a civil lawsuit on its own. I think it would have a much better shot at proving it's case as they would only need to prove it to a "preponderance of the evidence"

Later,

 

[surfnfly]

When I worked at a cargo company, years ago we had a FO that would always ground airplanes after his pre-flight. He would always find fuel caps missing on our Metro's. Company got the FBI involved set up a sting and video taped him tossing a fuel cap in a hanger trash can after his pre- flight.When confronted he admitted he did it so he didn't have to fly on days when there were thunderstorms. This was miami and we flew to the islands, thunderstorms every day in the summer. He went bye bye to the big house.