Appeals Court Overturns Rulings Against Three Defense Contractors

Judgments against three defense contractors were struck down Wednesday by a federal appeals court that ruled the firms are not liable for crashes that killed military fliers.

Each firm--Bell Helicopter, Vought Corp. and Sikorsky Aircraft--comes under a shield of defense that protects military contractors from such action, a three-judge panel of the U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in separate opinions.

In the case involving Vought, the court suggested the issue is immune from action in civilian tribunals because judges and juries are not qualified to answer military issues.

David Boyles, an attorney who represented Bell in a case where plaintiffs claimed two victims had died because of a defect known as mast bumping, said Wednesday’s decision was one the jury should have reached originally.

‘Majority Position’

“It sounds like the court recognized the position that’s really the majority position in the country, that the manufacturer of military products where the product is made according to specifications approved by the government is not responsible in a civilian lawsuit,” Boyles said.

In three separate cases, the appeals court:

--Reversed the $3.6-million verdict against Bell, a division of Textron Inc., for the families of servicemen Douglas Dowd and Robert Ellis, whose helicopter went down at Patuxent River, Md., while on a training flight.

--Struck down a $725,000 judgment against the Sikorsky division of United Technologies Corp. for a Marine helicopter crash off Virginia Beach, Va., that killed the pilot.

--Wiped out a $450,000 award to the family of Lt. Cmdr. Eliot Tozer, killed in a 1980 Navy plane crash off the coast of California. That suit was against Vought Corp.