PBL
Originally Posted by Safety Concerns
To suggest a company is responsible for the actions of an individual who knowingly and irresponsibly ignored approved procedures is nonsense.
Far from being nonsense, it is, as MountainBear pointed out, part of the law in most or all US states. A company is liable for the actions of any of its employees acting generally within the remit of their employment. Indeed, if you search for "duty of care" in US law documents on-line, these are the majority of instances you will find.
The fact that it may be part of the law in most US states does not
ipso facto make it necessarily correct.
It is no more than a statement of how a particluar jurisdictions deals with this kind of issue.
wings folded,
I am not sure what point you are trying to make by distinguishing a "tribunal correctionnel" from a "cour d'assise". Apparently, this tribunal correctionnel was able to hand down criminal sentences as well as apportion responsibility, and I think that discussion here is concerned mostly with a distinction between criminal act, whereby one is set some kind of punitive sentence for committing the act (often fine or prison), and civil liability, which is concerned mostly with financial compensation to victims for the consequences of an act. The distinction is clear and valid. One person was indeed handed a punitive sentence, in other words was judged guilty of a criminal offence. And it is the appropriateness of that in the context of larger concerns about improving aviation safety with which much of the discussion is concerned.
PBL
I had two intents in mind.
One was to try to give a little insight into non US procedures (i.e. French in this instance) for those not familiar with them, and
second: to draw the distinction between a "Cour d'Assise" verdict which involves
crimes, and a correctionnel verdict which involves "Délits".
The Continental mechanic was found to have committed a "délit", not a "crime".
The charge was "involontary homicide" (I have written on this before, but it may be worth repeating).
Now, what does that mean? It does not mean that he thought "I know what I will do, I will go completely outside the technical manuals, and pop a piece of totally unsuitable metal on an engine, that way Concorde will crash". Of course not.
It does mean that a correlation was found between his work and the final outcome, and that his work was identified as being well outside of what the protocols in place required.
He intended no harm, we can all suppose, but carried out a repair job incorrectly.
He was judged responsible for that by the court in Pontoise, and was given the sentence which had been demanded by the Procureur (Public Prosecutor if you wish), which was a
suspended prison sentence. Note carefully that French justice is not vindictive, chauvinistic, anti American, or whatever.
A suspended prison sentence on an American national means what in concrete terms? He would be barred from standing for election as Mayor of a French town. He would anyway, unless he was French.
And that is about as far as it goes.
One person was indeed handed a punitive sentence, in other words was judged guilty of a criminal offence.
More than one, actually. A French national furthermore. And was judged to have committed a "délit" also.
DGAC was found not guilty and assigned zero part of the responsibility by the court (that itself seems to me a mixing-up of criminal- with civil-law concepts; it seems French trials of this nature serve both purposes). Whether that is just is something which we could profitably discuss in this thread.
Part of my efforts in explaining the distiction between correctionnel and assise was precisely to try to assist comprehension, because you appear a little unclear:
I am not sure what point you are trying to make by distinguishing a "tribunal correctionnel" from a "cour d'assise".
When I read remarks along the lines of "kangaroo court" or "French law is an oxymoron" I make reasonable efforts to explain the process.
For those who believe that airline safety is enhanced by a "no blame culture", I choose not to be part of that wider debate, because it goes beyond my skill or competence.
I can see a clear case that if a pilot is aware that he inadvertently endangers his aircraft by some kind of action which the aircraft's systems permitted, and he in the aftermath "confesses", there may be a slight mod necessary to prevent that from happening again, and I would prefer to sit a few rows back from that kind of pilot, than from the one who believes he is faultless.
I am not qualified flying crew, but I do know a little about that of which I speak.