By Jack Nicas
CHICAGO--A judge here already has dismissed the first apparent
legal action related to Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, even before
searchers have located the missing jet.
A Cook County, Ill., judge dismissed a petition for discovery
seeking information on the Malaysia Airlines aircraft and pilots.
Ribbeck Law Chartered, based in Chicago, filed the petition last
week on behalf of the relative of an Indonesian passenger on Flight
370, seeking 26 different kinds of information from Malaysia
Airlines and Chicago-based Boeing Co., which manufactured the
aircraft.
On Friday, Cook County Circuit Judge Kathy Flanagan dismissed
the petition because it was improperly filed. The state law used
for the petition is for discovering defendants if there are none
already known. Ribbeck already named Boeing and Malaysia Airlines
as defendants, meaning the petition "exceeds the allowable scope of
the rule, and must be dismissed."
Ribbeck attorney Monica Kelly said that despite the dismissal,
the firm still could sue Boeing and Malaysia Airlines once the
wreckage or debris has been identified.
Boeing has declined to comment on potential litigation. Malaysia
Airlines previously said that it had received a copy of the
petition but it hadn't yet been formally served. The airline
couldn't be reached on Monday.
Judge Flanagan said Ribbeck has filed similar petitions in the
same court regarding fatal plane crashes involving Lao Airlines and
Asiana Airlines. The court dismissed both of those petitions on the
same grounds as the Malaysia Airlines petition.
"Despite these orders, the same law firm has proceeded, yet
again, with the filing of the instant petition, knowing full well
that there is no basis to do so," Judge Flanagan wrote. She said
she would fine the firm if it continued to file similar petitions
in the Circuit Court of Cook County.
"How many times do they need to be told that this is not the
proper procedure in this venue?" she said in an interview. "They're
wasting the court's time."
In an interview last week, another Ribbeck attorney said that
although investigators appear far from determining what happened to
Flight 370, the firm's petition was the precursor to a
wrongful-death suit against Malaysia Airlines, Boeing or both. The
attorney said that the firm theorizes the crash was caused by a
defect in the aircraft.
Justin Green, a partner at Kreindler & Kreindler LLP,
another law firm that specializes in aviation accidents, said that
Ribbeck's petition was a "frivolous filing." His firm is advising
foreign families of Flight 370 passengers that it is too soon to
know whether any litigation in the U.S. is possible, he said.
Ribbeck filed the petition on behalf of Januari Siregar, who it
said in the petition is the father of a Flight 370 passenger, an
Indonesian man named Firman Siregar. The Ribbeck attorney later
said that the petition was incorrect and that Januari Siregar is
the uncle or close relative of Firman Siregar.
A Siregar family spokesman, meanwhile, said Januari Siregar is a
distant relative of Firman Siregar and that the family hadn't
authorized him to act as a legal representative of the family.
Amid that confusion, Judge Flanagan wrote in the dismissal on
Friday that Januari Siregar is the mother of a Flight 370
passenger.
Write to Jack Nicas at jack.nicas@wsj.com
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