I asked Mark G. Forbes, the chairman of the USHPA insurance committee, if the USHPA was being hit by a number of lawsuits and whether depositions were taking up an inordinate amount of the staff's time and energy. Mark G. Forbes <> writes:

I can't comment at all on pending litigation. I can say that there have been several lawsuits in recent years, and there are some ongoing cases that are working their way through the legal system. There have also been some threats of lawsuits, of which nothing has so far come to pass.

It is typical in lawsuits that various people are deposed. That's not necessarily indicative of anything but thoroughness on the part of attorneys, and in some instances a "fishing expedition" to look for evidence. Not to say they find any that way, but they still look. A deposition is just sworn testimony, which allows it to be introduced into evidence without the person having to physically show up in court. It's pretty common; I've been deposed a few times for stuff related to work, though nothing so far related to USHPA.

Reviewing our history, I don't see an inordinate number of legal cases at present. They stem from accidents typically, and each case is unique unto itself. We've had some non-lawsuit claims against the insurance policy, mostly due to a pilot colliding with someone's property. The insurer is usually happy to pay such claims on receipt of the repair bill, and no extended legal process is needed. Lawsuits usually come from injury or fatality accidents, since people are expensive to repair (or unrepairable) where cars and buildings are easy to fix.

USHPA will continue to face lawsuits in the future. So long as someone thinks they've been injured, and can find some legal theory that would make USHPA liable for that injury, they'll continue to sue us. Sometimes a claim is clearly legitimate, and other times you might question whether USHPA or a member pilot is truly "responsible" for someone's injury.

To give a purely hypothetical case, which I'm making up on the spot, we might be sued by a driver of a vehicle who has a single-vehicle rollover accident on the freeway. He crawls out of his car and looks around. He sees a hang glider pilot who lands a few minutes later. The pilot comes over to see if the guy's all right, and maybe calls for a tow truck. Later on, the driver decides to sue, claiming that the hang glider flying near the road distracted him and caused him to veer off into the ditch. Now, we might say that's a pretty flimsy excuse, but he might get some attorney to take it on. The pilot might be sued for his "negligent flying", and USHPA might be sued for having issued a rating to this pilot.

That's where the insurance comes into play. Our insurer will do an investigation, and defend the case. They'll try to get it dismissed early, before it gets expensive. The plaintiff might want to depose somebody at USHPA regarding how we train and rate pilots, as an example. Part of what we pay for with our annual insurance premium is a really good legal defense, so that when we do end up getting sued for whatever reason, we have good representation in court. And if a pilot or USHPA is found to be at fault, then the insurance provides financial coverage for the loss.

I can think of legitimate claims too. We've had occasions in the past (far past, thankfully) where we've paid significant claims after pilots hit people on the ground during launch or landing. One instance resulted in a fatality, and others have resulted in permanent disability. That's a "nightmare scenario", but it's the reason we have a substantial insurance policy. Such claims are very rare, and we hope they never happen again, but history says they *can* happen. And so, we insure.

I don't see lawsuits as a significant time-sink for us at present. We do devote some time each month during the conference call to "closed session" issues, and those might involve legal stuff as well as personnel concerns or other confidential matters. We try to do as much as possible in open session, with meeting notes available for members to review, but there are a few things we have to discuss confidentially.

As I said, I can't discuss lawsuits, either current or past, in any detail. I will say that the combination of our pilot waiver and our insurance program provides us with a fairly solid defense against liability claims, which is what an individual pilot is really concerned about. We continue to watch legal decisions and adapt our coverage and waiver as needed to provide good protection for USHPA and our members.

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