Aug. 02--A Chinese university professor seriously injured in the July 6 crash of Asiana Airlines Flight 214 has sued the carrier in federal court -- thanks to a quirk that makes him one of the few Chinese or South Korean citizens on the flight able to bring a potentially lucrative case in the United States.
Zhengheng Xie, a professor at Shanghai University, was flying to visit his son in the South Bay when the Boeing 777 crashed at San Francisco International Airport. Three Chinese schoolgirls were killed and about 180 people were injured, including Xie, who broke his spine and remains in a body cast, said his attorney, Michael Verna of Walnut Creek.
Xie and his wife, Wei Song, are seeking $5 million from the South Korean airline in damages for pain and suffering, according the suit, which was filed Monday in U.S. District Court in San Francisco. His wife was not on the flight.
Most of Xie's 290 fellow passengers were South Korean or Chinese citizens. They will be able to sue in their home countries, but damage awards there are harder to come by and less lucrative than what plaintiffs can obtain in the United States, legal experts said.
A 1999 international treaty lays out the rules of when and where crash victims can sue airlines, said Mike Danko, a Redwood Shores attorney who has represented plaintiffs in lawsuits against airlines for 15 years.
"There are five places where you can bring a suit if you've crashed in an international airliner," Danko said. "One, where the airline has its principal place of business, or, two, where the business is incorporated. In this case those would be Korea.
"You can also file suit where the ticket was purchased, in the home country of the injured person or at the place of the trip's final destination," Danko said.
Xie does not have U.S. citizenship, but his son bought his plane ticket in the United States, Verna said. That gives him the right to sue the airline here, the attorney said.
Passengers who bought round-trip tickets in Seoul or Shanghai, Flight 214's city of origin, won't be able to sue here even though the plane was landing in the United States. With a round-trip ticket, passengers' final destination was actually Shanghai or Seoul, not San Francisco.
"That's why basically the Chinese and South Koreans are screwed," Danko said. The attorney is representing six victims of the air crash, but has yet to file any lawsuits, he said.
In the United States, the families of the three Chinese girls who died could expect to receive millions of dollars in a lawsuit against the airline, Danko said. In China, they'll be lucky to get $20,000 apiece.
"For a lot of people, it is not going to even be worth it to sue" in South Korea or China, Danko said. "It is either here or nowhere."
Foreign crash victims can sue airplane manufacturer Boeing in a U.S. court, and some have already done so, Verna said. But such suits are difficult to win.
"Plaintiffs that sue Boeing have the burden of proving that case," Verna said. "In the suits against the airline, the burden is on Asiana to prove it was not negligent."
The majority of passengers, Danko said, "have no remedy against the airline. The overwhelming number of people on this flight will have nothing, will have no remedy whatsoever."
Will Kane is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: [email protected] Twitter: @WillKane
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