On August 28,
Jordan Lipp, a DGS associate, won a jury trial for Noble Energy after four days of testimony, when a Greeley, Colorado, judge directed the verdict in favor of all defendants after the plaintiff’s case rested.
The case arose out of a small airplane accident. Attempting to land during practice maneuvers at the Platte Valley Air Park, the plaintiff, who was piloting the aircraft, lost control of the plane due in part to wind gusts. Aborting the landing after touchdown, the plaintiff tried to take off again. During a gradual climb perpendicular to the runway, at low altitude before being fully airborne, he crashed into a 15-foot Noble oil tank a couple hundred feet from the runway. The plaintiff suffered a serious leg injury and a total loss of his plane.
Plaintiff’s counsel, a well-known aviation attorney, asserted that Noble and the airpark had violated FAA regulations and were negligent in placing the oil tank so close to the airpark’s runway without proper lighting and coloring on the tank. This assertion was supported by trial testimony from two experts, including a former FAA employee. Lipp and seasoned aviation attorney Tom Byrne, representing co-defendant Platte Valley Air Park, cross-examined the expert then convinced the judge the plaintiff’s evidence was insufficient to prove the tank’s lighting and color defects caused the accident and the plaintiff’s injuries. The judge entered a directed judgment in the defendants’ favor, without testimony from defense experts.