Cappello v. Duncan Aircraft Sales of Florida
United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
79 F.3d 1465 (1996)
- Written by David Bloom, JD
Facts
Kirk Capello, then 28 years old, was killed in an airplane crash. Cappello’s parents (plaintiffs) sued Duncan Aviation (Duncan) (defendant) for wrongful death, alleging that the pilot was negligent in operating the airplane. Duncan argued that the pilot was not entirely responsible for the crash and tried to shift the blame to employees of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) (nonparties). At trial, Duncan offered the expert testimony of an economist who opined that Cappello’s economic value, based on the average yearly income that Cappello earned in the five years before Capello’s death, was $732,829. Capello’s earnings were on an upward trend during the last two years of Capello’s life, as Capello was still in school during the first three years of the five-year period that Duncan’s expert economist examined and earned far more income in the last two years. Other experts testified that Capello’s income would have been much higher than Duncan’s expert economist estimated. The jury found that Duncan’s pilot was 45 percent responsible for the crash, and the FAA employees were 55 percent responsible. The jury thus awarded Capello’s parents $329,773 in damages after deducting the 55 percent comparative negligence of the FAA employees. Capello’s parents appealed.
Rule of Law
Issue
Holding and Reasoning (Merritt, C.J.)
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