Transcript
CNBC RIVERA LIVE (9:00 PM ET), August 31, 1999
(Guests: Geoffrey Fieger, John Burris, Allan Lichtman, Michael Pangia)
He was called America's prince, and the deaths of John F. Kennedy Jr., along with his glamorous wife, Carolyn, and her investment-banker sister, Lauren Bessette, plunged the nation into mourning. And now there may be a particularly American aftermath to the tragedy, a lawsuit. Ann Freeman, the mother of the Bessette sisters, has reserved the right to file a wrongful-death suit against the JFK estate, which is estimated to be worth at least $ 50 million. Freeman filed court papers in New York last week seeking to become administrator of her daughters' estates, which are each valued at less than $ 1/2 million.
The possibility of a civil suit seeking damages would be based on the circumstances surrounding the July 16th airplane crash that killed the trio. Freeman and her ex-husband, the father of the girls, probably would not be able legally to sue on behalf of Carolyn, as a wife's heirs normally can't sue the husband or his estate, but they could file a suit on behalf of Lauren against any number of possible defendants: the plane manufacturer, the company that maintained the aircraft, the flight school that trained Kennedy, the FAA and its weather report service or, most ominous but most likely, the Kennedy estate itself based on the belief that some kind of negligence on his part led to the accident.
John Burris, Geoffrey Fieger, let me start with you. You're both quite familiar with high-profile cases, civil cases and have both prevailed against pretty big clients, Warner Bros. and the city of Los Angeles respectfully. Are we seeing, Geoffrey Fieger, the potential for a Bessette vs. Kennedy courtroom feud?
Mr. GEOFFREY FIEGER (Trial Attorney): Yeah, the potential's there, and they've set the groundwork, but what you've seen is simply a implicit, if not explicit, warning. The Kennedy family is very, very private. I doubt very highly that they will get into a dispute with the Bessette family. I would expect that, having been served the warning, which clearly they were served with by virtue of the filing of the estate and the indication that such a claim is existing and they're thinking about it, is going to be enough to stimulate the family to come forward and say, 'What can we do now?' That probably will be enough. I doubt the Kennedy family is going to get into a public lawsuit.
GREGORY: John?
Mr. JOHN BURRIS (Civil and Criminal Attorney): Well, I think that it's right. I mean, they certainly have a right to bring this kind of cause of action. If you took out the Kennedy names and the importance of the people involved, it's a--it's a very legitimate lawsuit that one could bring and would probably ordinarily be brought. I mean, it's a question of negligence. I think all the facts would suggest that.
On the other hand, I--I think we should not get into the view that it's going to be a family feud. Ultimately, when you get down to this, this is a question of insurance money, first place. And the second place, if it is insurance money only, if there was a real question of punitive damages, then, of course--then it would test the family estate. And--and it seems to me that all parties involvement in this case would not want to have that kind of matter aired in public, and so I would say that there would ultimately be a resolution of this kind, although--albeit quietly, but certainly not a protracted--protracted kind of struggle.
GREGORY: Michael, expand on that. Is this particularly a fight over insurance money? Does the estate--Kennedy's estate potentially get involved at all?
Mr. MICHAEL PANGIA (Aviation Attorney): Well, not necessarily. I mean, the potential is there, of course, for a lawsuit and--and for a claim against any insurance money. But in New York, you have to file, as an administratrix of the estate, all your potential claims, whether you intend to bring them or not, and that's what was done here. So it's not necessarily an indication that there is going to be a lawsuit. And I--I agree with the other gentlemen here that, most likely, if we were free to guess here, it--it would be resolved very quietly. I don't know how much insurance money there is there. Generally speaking, these aircraft policies are $ 1 million, and some of them even have a $ 100,000 limitation per seat. I don't know what existed here.
GREGORY: Professor Lichtman, you hear all of this. In your mind, does there have to be any lawsuit here? Should--should the dignity of everything that we've seen so far associated with this tragedy be kept that way?
Professor ALLAN LICHTMAN (Presidential Historian): I certainly would hate to see a family feud develop between these two families and this tragedy dragged out into the public and let all you people in the media feast again. The lawyers seem to say that's not likely to happen. Who knows? Since when is the law ever respected--dignity? That's not the way it works in this country. We've had kind of a free-for-all, rough-and-tumble justice going back all the way to the Colonial period and the period of early Americans. In fact, as--one critic charged lawyers with being pedofargers who stir up many unnecessary lawsuits.
Mr. FIEGER: Yeah, but many lawsuits...
Prof. LICHTMAN: That was John Adams in 1759. This is as American as apple pie.
Mr. BURRIS: No, I--I disagree with that.
Prof. LICHTMAN: The lawyers say it's all decorous. I don't think so.
GREGORY: Go ahead, John.
Mr. BURRIS: I--I disagree with that. I--many, many lawsuits involving very important people are--are quietly handled. Money exchange hands, but they resolve them in a quiet, dignified way. And there's no reason why that shouldn't happen here. Obviously there's a tremendous loss on everyone's side, and there's no interest in having this matter put forth in a public way. And--and I think it--lawyers will ultimately get together and identify what the particular issues are, and they will resolve this. The--the--the Bessette family has...
GREGORY: G--Geoffrey, what's interesting here is that if you look at what's obvious here in terms of liability, you go to mechanical failure.
Mr. FIEGER: No, no. You--no. You go to...
GREGORY: There's no evidence that that was an issue at all. No, you don't go there?
Mr. FIEGER: No, you go--you go to pilot error. The--the...
Mr. BURRIS: Pilot error, no question.
Mr. FIEGER: ...real--the li--the liability here is with John Kennedy and the strong case, obviously, is with his sister-in-law, Lauren. But there are enough lawyers in the Kennedy family, and this Kennedy family cherishes its privacy. They will never, ever allow even an insurance company to make this a d--a public dispute. There is enough money there that the Bessette family will be adequately compensated. I...
GREGORY: Do you go after the flight school?
Mr. FIEGER: No. No, you do not.
Mr. PANGIA: I don't think--I don't think there's any case against the flight school here, and I've represented families against flying schools. And--and they're very, very difficult cases. After all, thi--this pilot, John, was given--was given a written test by the Federal Aviation Administration. He passed that. He was given a test by an FAA-designated examiner, and he passed that. So he showed his qualifications. And for somebody who, let's say, drove on an icy road years later and had an accident, to go back and sue the school th--where--where you learned to fly--or learned to drive is--is a very, very difficult connection to make.
Mr. BURRIS: Is there...
GREGORY: But, you know, Michael, we're--we're talking about the need for privacy, and I think a lot of people would agree with that, but you've--you've dealt with family members who dealt with tragedy on this level.
Mr. PANGIA: Yes.
GREGORY: You're talking about the Bessette family and the loss of two daughters here.
Mr. PANGIA: Yeah, this is...
GREGORY: Does not someone have to pay for that?
Mr. PANGIA: Well, you know, it really is a--a decision that families make, and sometimes families choose not to do it or to do it quietly. And if there's insurance money there, there certainly is not going to be enough insurance money--in--in my--in my experience, generally speaking, there isn't enough insurance money in a case like this to pay this terrible loss.
Mr. BURRIS: No, it's an issue...
Mr. PANGIA: It's probably a policy that is limited to $ 1 million, maybe $ 2 million, but...
Mr. FIEGER: John Kennedy's estate is $ 50 million to $ 100 million.
Mr. PANGIA: Right. Estate, yes.
Mr. FIEGER: There are several millions of dollars going to be shifted over to the Bessette family, no question about it.
Prof. LICHTMAN: You know...
Mr. BURRIS: You know, there's always a question of--in terms of the FAA requirements, whether or not he should have not been allowed to fly without being able to have an instrument-rating qualification. And--and the question is: Who is responsible for that, if anyone? And that--if there was going to be a real fight, and I'm not saying there should be one at all, that obviously is a potential defendant there, although I wouldn't hold my breath for it...
Mr. PANGIA: No.
Mr. BURRIS: ...given that you have the pilot error.
Mr. PANGIA: No, you have under--under the Federal Tort Claims Act, which is the permissive statute to sue the government, there's a discretionary function exception. And if you look at cases like Clemente vs. the United States Varig and so forth and the progeny, you can't sue the government for--for failure to enforce a regulation or failure to have further regulations or if you didn't like a law that they passed. So...
Mr. BURRIS: No, you...
Mr. FIEGER: A smart attorney would never--would never bring in peripheral defendants.
Mr. PANGIA: Never.
Mr. FIEGER: You'd bring in the main actor.
Mr. BURRIS: Not when they have--not when they have deep pockets already.
GREGORY: All right.
Mr. BURRIS: And this is not a situation where you don't have pockets.
GREGORY: Gentlemen, I'm going to leave it there. Thanks to all of you for joining us tonight. That's going to do it for us. Oh, we have one more segment. I'm sorry, coming right back right after a break.
GREGORY: Good thing I'm not timing the show tonight. We have more time to talk. Good thing. John Burris, here's the question. We've been talking so much about Lauren Bessette having the better case here. Why is it that the family cannot sue on behalf of Carolyn against her husband?
Mr. BURRIS: Well, generally there's a spousal immunity in most states, meaning that a husband or wife cannot sue the other where a tort has been committed against the other. And...
GREGORY: If it's negligence in this case.
Mr. BURRIS: If it's negligence. And in this situation, the decedents, the heirs can have no better suit than a decedent. So, therefore, if Carolyn couldn't sue, then--of course, then her family cannot sue on her behalf. So essentially they are barred, for the most part, from bringing a--a lawsuit as--as--as an heir based upon what's happened.
Prof. LICHTMAN: David, can I get in here?
Mr. FIEGER: A--as a practical matter, too, juries will never award and they'll never give any money to a wife against a husband. But a more interesting issue that we're kind of ignoring is the warning that was sent. Obviously the Bessette family feels a little neglected by the Kennedy family or this filing would have never taken place in the first place.
GREGORY: Is it really that sinister?
Mr. BURRIS: I don't--I don't think--I don't think that's true at all.
Mr. PANGIA: No.
Mr. BURRIS: I don't think that. I think there's a--there's a--I think it's...
Mr. FIEGER: Oh, yes. Oh, yes.
Mr. BURRIS: You know, I think they had to do it as a matter of a notice.
Mr. FIEGER: No, no, because the Kennedy family could have immediately gone to the Bessette family and said, 'Lookit, there are enough lawyers there.' They s--and they knew what could come and they say, 'What can we do?'
Mr. BURRIS: Well, that's true.
Mr. FIEGER: Because this would become inevitably public.
Prof. LICHTMAN: I--I've got to object to all these lawyers here.
GREGORY: Go ahead, Professor.
Prof. LICHTMAN: They are assuming--they are assuming, like lawyers do, that there's some negligence here, somebody did something wrong and somebody has to pay. Look, you can never, of course, replace a life.
Mr. PANGIA: Well, you know, the question is...
Mr. BURRIS: That--that's a real--that's an easy one.
Prof. LICHTMAN: But there are accidents in this world.
Mr. BURRIS: That's an easy one.
Prof. LICHTMAN: There are things that are accidental, and they're all assuming, you know, that this isn't just a tragic accident, that somehow somebody has to pay. And because the Kennedys love their privacy, they can't defend themselves, and they're going to have to go and do something about this tragedy in a monetary sense. As an ordinary citizen...
Mr. BURRIS: You know what? If you don't--if you don't...
Prof. LICHTMAN: ...I feel--object to that line of thinking.
Mr. BURRIS: ...have a plane that is mechanically defective, and you don't have maintenance and you have a person with this kind of record, it's pretty easy to draw the conclusion that there must be pilot era. Now that's not a c--condemnation of some kind, but the plane is not supposed to go down.
Prof. LICHTMAN: You know nothing about what happened that night. I'm sorry, sir, you know nothing.
Mr. FIEGER: You may not know--you may not know...
Mr. BURRIS: We may not know, but a lawyer has to make some predictions.
Mr. FIEGER: ...what happened, but the Kennedy family is very wealthy and two young ladies died.
Prof. LICHTMAN: And, therefore, they have to pay 'cause they have money?
Mr. FIEGER: And somebody is go--well, wait a second.
Mr. BURRIS: Somebody...
Mr. FIEGER: The Kennedy family is not going to take a hard-nosed stance and say, 'OK, you prove it.'
Mr. BURRIS: Right.
Mr. FIEGER: They're not going to do it with this family.
Prof. LICHTMAN: So we can extort them with the law?
Mr. BURRIS: And--and most people would not do that.
Mr. FIEGER: This is...
Mr. BURRIS: I don't think it's a question of extortion.
Mr. PANGIA: Well, lawyers like to arg--we lawyers like to argue with each other.
Mr. BURRIS: You can fight that issue out, but do you really want to fight it out in terms of...
Mr. PANGIA: But was the es...
Mr. BURRIS: ...what actually happened in that--in the--in the pulpit there? I don't know what you'd accomplish.
GREGORY: Michael...
Mr. PANGIA: Was the--was the--was this estate--was this estate opened for that purpose alone? And that's a--that's a question that--that you need to answer. We lawyers like to argue with each other. The--the administratrix has got to open up the estate to protect the estate and then the decision could be made later on. So just by opening the estate doesn't really mean that there's a warning or anything sent. I mean, it...
GREGORY: Geoffrey Fieger, you talked about peripheral defendants here. Are there other targets that are possible?
Mr. FIEGER: Not--not realistically. No lawyer worth their salt would ever endeavor, engage in a suit against the FAA or the manufacturer or the flight school because you have an obvious situation where a--if you had...
Mr. PANGIA: I agree.
Mr. FIEGER: ...to go to court, any jury would accept John Kennedy didn't have the experience and flew into an--a danger area that he had no business flying into. Any jury will accept that.
Mr. BURRIS: And you could spend a lot of money and waste a lot of energy pursuing these other people, and you ultimately get out of the case on summary judgment.
Mr. PANGIA: That would be a waste of time. I agree.
Mr. BURRIS: Yeah.
Mr. FIEGER: Yeah.
GREGORY: W--wasted time just because they're--they're two formidable opponents or because...
Mr. FIEGER: Yeah.
Mr. BURRIS: Well, it's both--both.
Mr. FIEGER: There's plenty of money. There's plenty of money.
Mr. PANGIA: You know, there's absolutely no--there's absolutely no evidence disclosed...
Mr. BURRIS: But the opponents themselves--it would be difficult to--to bring those opponents in, in any event. So, yeah, they're formidable opponents.
Mr. PANGIA: Yeah.
GREGORY: Al--Allan Lichtman, th--there's no question that there is something unseemly about all of the possibilities here, but you--you have to at least recognize that the--the families involved, the amount of money that the Kennedy family has and this--you know, a societal need for someone to pay for this terrible tragic loss of life has got to come into play here.
Prof. LICHTMAN: Oh, of course. But, you know, these lawyers seem to have, you know, tried the case and--and settled already, one of them saying, 'No jury would...'
Mr. BURRIS: I--I don't think that's true.
Prof. LICHTMAN: '...deny what happened.' This--this case--we--we know so little about what happened that night. We should not prejudge. There are accidents in this world. Not everybody has to pay for something simply because they're rich...
Mr. BURRIS: But it's the lawyer's job to make assessments at the outset.
Prof. LICHTMAN: ...and simply because they have deep pockets and simply because they like their privacy.
GREGORY: Final word, John. Go ahead.
Mr. BURRIS: I was going to say it's the lawyer's job to make some assessment at the outset and then make--and--and to follow the legal course. I think all we really said is these are the options that are available to you, and these are what--the likely outcome is going to be. This is a course of action.
GREGORY: All right.
Mr. BURRIS: This is perfectly within a lawyer's purview to do.
GREGORY: Gonna leave it there. Thanks to all of you.
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