Victims Sue Thailand, U.S., Accor Over Tsunami

[420inTN]

From Reuters:

VIENNA (Reuters) - U.S. and Austrian lawyers have filed a lawsuit demanding Thailand, U.S. forecasters and the French Accor group answer accusations they failed in a duty to warn populations hit by December's Tsunami disaster, a lawyer said Monday.

The lawsuit was filed Friday at a New York district court on behalf of tsunami victims by lawyers including U.S. attorney Edward Fagan, internationally renowned for 1990s lawsuits against Swiss banks over Holocaust-era accounts. It demanded an account of their actions on Dec. 26.

"We expect a hearing within 30 days," Austrian lawyer Gerhard Podovsovnik told Reuters.

"We don't earn any money on the lawsuit. We want to help people," he said. "We are suing to get information."

more, full story http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=worldNews&storyID=2005-03-07T142010Z_01_L07154906_RTRIDST_0_INTERNATIONAL-TSUNAMI-LAWSUIT-DC.XML">here

[NervousRex]

1. Force Majeure

The case is meritless.

[TahitiNut]

2. Well, the question of anticipation is at issue.

It's my understanding that 'force majeure' relates to unanticipated events (or, if anticipated, unavoidable) of such magnitude that performance could not be reasonably undertaken. This typically relates to contracts and "acts of God."

The suit, however, seems to address the very question of anticipation and avoidance and may have a cascading impact on all manner of subsidiary contractual performance issues that might be litigated.

[NervousRex]

4. I understand that

If it is determined that proper warning was not given, it opens a huge can of worms, rightly or wrongly....especially concerning other "acts of nature", but especially earthquakes.

[TahitiNut]

5. I can imagine insurance companies refusing to pay ...

... in instances where the U.S. had losses. As I understand it, the insured has a duty to mitigate, limit, or ameliorate the scope and degree of a loss. Where the insured has a close relationship with some agency or entity shown able to provide a warning but which did not, then it's not too great a stretch to say they failed in their duty. The question would then remain about what degree of mitigation might be reasonable to expect if the warning was delivered. Fun.

[daleo]

3. This could prove interesting.

If the case does go to court we would at least get testimony on some basic facts:
- when, where and how was the signal first detected.
- what efforts were made to get warnings to the public.
- when those efforts were made, and how persistently.

Just having these facts entered under oath would be useful. I don't know about whether any sort of legal culpability would come from it, though.

The link didn't work for me.

[Igel]

6. Link

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=VRFOK1JAMPOZYCRBAELCFFA?type=topNews&storyID=7826872

You'll have to cut and paste; I can't get the server to accept the ;.