On Fri, 12 Jan 2007 12:40:10 -0800, jls wrote
(in article .com):


wrote:
A cool thing you might not know:

I got an idea you don't know much.


The NTSB reports are not
admissable (sic) in a brawl like this.

Just as the report of a highway patrol officer or city police officer
is not admissible in a court of law.


Can't cross examine the
NTSB, so they are out.

Not exactly true. If a witness who contributes to a NTSB report
appears and testifies in court, he can be cross-examined just like any
other witness.


Actually, NTSB reports are inadmissible by statute. This came up in a recent
Cessna claim, too, and was reported by both AOPA and the Wall Street Journal.
The idea was that keeping the NTSB out of court would make them more
'independent.' However, as you note, although the report is inadmissible, you
certainly can introduce evidence used in the report. Thus, if NTSB has
witnesses who saw an aircraft buzzing cars, as in the Cessna incident, then
you should be able to subpoena those same witnesses. That Cessna's lawyers
did not do that I can only attribute to gross incompetence.


Leaves the plantiff to make
up anything they can sell to the jury.

Or someone like you to make up a lot of malarkey.


Gotta remember, the goal isn't to find the truth.

That's exactly what juries are for, to find the truth.


BWAHAHAHA! Right. Tell me another one. Juries do a poor job of finding the
truth, and everyone in the legal biz knows it (or should -- but they will not
always admit to it to outsiders). There are so many spectacular failures of
juries that one cannot even begin to catalog them all. Juries are typically
draw from the most gullible and least informed part of society --
deliberately. Attorneys do not want people who actually know something to
serve on a jury. That works great for Lizzie Borden and OJ Simpson, not so
well for aircraft manufacturers and airshow organizers.