Selke v. Germanwings GmbH, 261 F. Supp. 3d 645 (E.D. Va. 2017)
Jul 20, 2017OUTCOME: This decision was honored as first runner up for case of the year in the Elite Trial Lawyers awards (2018) by the National Law Journal.
Germanwings Flight 9525 crashed on March 24, 2015, when the pilot locked out the copilot while in cruise flight, and committed suicide by crashing it into the French Alps, killing all 150 people on boa ... rd. I represented the family of the only two Americans on board, a mother and daughter from Virginia on a trip to celebrate college graduation. The lawsuit was filed in Virginia. The airline never did business in the US, never advertised, had no offices or employees in the US, and was never required to pay taxes in the US. Based on the lack of contacts, the airline filed a motion to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction. The court ruled that it did indeed have personal jurisdiction over the German Airline, agreeing with our position that it used United Airlines as its agent.
