AUBURN WOMAN FILES VALUJET SUIT HERE
Aug 20, 1997
The Mobile Register
An Auburn woman whose husband was killed in the ValuJet crash last summer
has tapped one of the most successful plaintiffs' lawyers in Mobile
to sue the airline and its maintenance contractor.
Attorney Joseph "Buddy" Brown, who has successfully sued national
and local companies for millions of dollars in recent years, is now representing
Paula B. Sabo of Auburn.
Her husband, Dennis J. Sabo, an education professor at Auburn University,
was returning May 11, 1996, from his son's graduation at the University
of Miami, Brown said.
Sabo had taken an earlier flight on ValuJet so he could be home for Mother's
Day with his wife and daughters. That plane, Flight 592, caught fire and
crashed into the Florida Everglades just after takeoff.
The lawsuit charges that ValuJet and its maintenance subcontractor, SabreTech,
were negligent in causing the crash. A National Transportation Safety
Board report released Tuesday agreed to a large degree, blaming the crash on:
*The failure of SabreTech properly to prepare, package and identify a
cargo of hazardous oxygen generators that have been blamed for starting
the fire that brought down the plane.
*The failure of ValuJet to oversee properly its maintenance contractors.
But the NTSB, which investigates air crashes, also blamed the Federal
Aviation Administration for failing to require smoke detection and suppression
equipment in cargo holds.
The FAA is not named in the Sabo lawsuit.
The suit does not specify a dollar amount of damages.
"I never sue for a specified amount," Brown said.
The Sabo suit against ValuJet was filed Aug. 1 in Mobile County Circuit
Court. Mobile is an appropriate jurisdiction, Brown said, because ValuJet
flies out of Mobile Regional Airport.
"There is no possibility that this could become a class-action suit,"
Brown said.
Some 110 people were killed in the ValuJet crash, but for one jury to
determine an equitable amount for each loss of life would be impossible,
he said. He added he did not know the number of other, similar suits that
have been filed against ValuJet and SabreTech since the crash.
John R. Matthews of Montgomery, attorney for ValuJet and SabreTech, declined
to comment on the suit.