Japan Air Crash Lawsuits to Be Tried in U. S.

A judge ruled Friday that lawsuits against the Boeing Co. and Japan Air Lines stemming from the worst single-plane crash in history will be tried in the United States, thwarting a bid by the corporations to move the trial to Japan.

The question of liability for the Aug. 12, 1985, crash of a JAL Boeing 747 that killed 520 of the 524 people aboard will be determined in Washington state, King County Superior Court Judge Gary Little ruled.

“Once liability is out of the way, we will look at how damages would be decided in Japan and how they would be decided here, and then I will rule” on where damages will be decided, he said.

The case could reach trial in about nine months, he said.

The ruling came in the lawsuits filed by families of 77 of the people who died when the jumbo jet crashed into a mountain southwest of Tokyo.

The Boeing Co. and JAL had argued before Little that Japan was the proper forum for the lawsuits, and that there would be great expense and delay to try the cases in Seattle.

Attorneys for the plaintiffs, however, said the two companies simply wanted to duck the issue of liability by closing ranks and cut their monetary losses by barring the litigants from American courts.