BL,
From what I understand so far the airplane landed on the main wheels and bounced a few times, but the nose remained up until the flight crew decided they needed to coax the nose down with some down elevator. That seems to have caused the harder than usual forces on the nose wheel, causing the damage. The scenario is indicative of a landing attempted at a higher than normal speed.
This type of damage to the 767 has been seen before. It would be interesting to see if litigation followed in the other instances.
With respect to the use of the word "crash", most people, including the judge and potential jurors know what an airplane
"crash" is. And I think generally, those people would not consider this a "crash". Not all damage to a car during normal operation is a result of what people generally call a crash. Its just overly colourful language.