Practice Areas & Industries: Carlton Fields, P.A.

Practice/Industry Group Overview

While thousands of Americans continue to fly every day, the aviation industry itself is challenged as never before. The drastic economic downturn triggered by the events of September 11, 2001 has accelerated a decade-long trend of mergers, acquisitions, litigation, bankruptcies, rising fuel and operating costs, and labor difficulties. As the industry works to recover, some of the nation's best-known airlines are struggling financially, engaging in difficult union negotiations, and working to implement a whole new generation of security measures to protect passengers.

At Carlton Fields, we thoroughly understand the business of aviation -- the laws, the risks, the regulations, the challenges, and the opportunities. The attorneys in our Aviation Practice are especially skilled and experienced in defending a wide range of claims stemming from major airline disasters, accidents, employment practices liability, and insurance. Their success has made Carlton Fields one of the premier aviation defense firms in the Southeastern United States.

Carlton Fields' Aviation Practice Group is comprised of seasoned trial attorneys and litigators with a tremendous depth of experience representing the aviation industry. That experience includes defending carriers, manufacturers and their insurers in major commercial airline disasters as well as the more routine claims for injury and property damage. Carlton Fields represents domestic and international air carriers and other members of the aviation industry including ground handling facilities, catering services, an international aviation trade organization as well as pilots and mechanics.

Members of Carlton Fields' Aviation Practice Group have trial experience in death, injury and property damage claims arising from major air disasters. Emmet J. Schwartzman, the practice group leader, has over 20 years of aviation litigation experience. His experience began with defending the airline and its insurer in the 1982 crash of a Pan Am Boeing 727 in Kenner, Louisiana, which, at the time, was the nation's second worst air disaster. Another member of the Aviation Practice Group is a commercial pilot with instrument and seaplane ratings.

Some examples of the breadth and sophistication of Carlton Fields' Aviation Practice are:

• Defended air carrier in federal multidistrict litigation arising from crash of an American Airlines Boeing 757 near Cali, Colombia in 1995

• Defended manufacturer in products liability claims brought in mass tort litigation arising from 1996 crash of a ValuJet DC-9 in the Florida Everglades

• Defended air carrier in federal multidistrict litigation arising from severe turbulence incident near the Bahamas in 1996 resulting in one catastrophic injury

• Won appeal after oral argument in the Eleventh Circuit declaring Jamaica to be a High Contracting Party to the Warsaw Convention

• Won appeal after oral argument in a case of first impression in the Eleventh Circuit defining "embarkation" under the Warsaw Convention

• Obtained summary judgment in favor of airline in federal suit under the Americans with Disabilities Act alleging that airline's web site was not accessible to vision-impaired users

• Obtained defense verdict in wrongful death jury trial arising from a major air disaster

• Obtained a dismissal with prejudice in an airport ramp accident where plaintiff committed perjury and fraud on the court

• FAA enforcement actions, including the defense of ATP and commercial-rated pilots

• Successfully defended an A & P mechanic in a federal criminal prosecution in which the U.S. District Court granted a motion to suppress evidence

• Appearances before the federal Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation

• Defended air carriers in a wide variety of personal injury claims including severe turbulence, premises liability claims, ramp accidents, food poisoning, denied boarding, passenger ejectment, claims for "delay" under the Warsaw Convention, false imprisonment, malicious prosecution, assault and battery, emergency evacuations, overhead bin accidents, in-flight heart attacks and illnesses, hot beverage spills, lost/damaged checked and carry-on baggage and claims governed by the Warsaw Convention and IATA Intercarrier Agreements

• Frequent litigation of choice of law issues in air carrier liability cases

• Won appeal in death case from a major air disaster where state appellate court ruled plaintiff's "de facto marital union" to a deceased flight attendant under foreign law was not a common law marriage and plaintiff therefore had no claim for death of flight attendant

• Nationwide representation of air carriers in Florida, Oklahoma, Maryland, U.S. Virgin Islands and Washington state

• Speaking engagements and in-house seminars on the Warsaw Convention, IATA Intercarrier Agreements, Montreal Convention of 1999, passenger ejectment and denied boarding, multidistrict litigation for aviation accidents and cooperation agreements between airlines