Now this is an interesting lawsuit. In Massachusetts, Marlboro Airport wants payment of $676,048 for damage caused by “negligent” use of its facility, including unauthorized vehicles that tore up its field. The problem is that the culprit is the U.S. government. In 2010, President Barack Obama descended on the airport and brought with him a huge entourage, including a massive vehicles that were too heavy for the tarmac. After trashing the field, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security refused to compensate the company that runs the field.
The company, Marlborough Airport Properties Inc., has now sued. The complaint states that the Obama Administration assured them that there would be no such damage to the field when Obama came to inspect a new emergency bunker system. They were told that the Marine One helicopter would not cause damage. However, they did not mention a series of ground vehicles that would come along with the helicopter including but “not limited to, a ‘foam truck,’ which weighs approximately 44,000 pounds, [that were] negligently driven onto the airport and proximately caused property damage in an amount of $676,048.13.”
This may be the ultimate example of the “trust us we’re the government” line. The airport was assured the helicopter would not harm the field and just left out the 44,000 pound foam truck they intended to drop on the field.
The nice thing about tort cases with the President is that you almost always have video:
Update: My colleague and fellow torts teacher John Banzhaf sent me the following analysis of an alternative attack to avoid FTCA problems, which I am posting with his permission:
To avoid possible dismissal under the discretionary function exemption of the Federal Torts Claims Act for bringing the action as one in negligence, an alternative would have been to style the action as the intentional tort of trespass to chattels.
The government becomes “subject to liability” by doing an act with the intent to cause anything to go on the land of another, even if there were no damage.
The government’s defense to an action in trespass to chattels would be consent: the airport authority permitted them to come on the land.
However, that consent will be invalidated if it was caused by a mistake induced by the government, provided it is of a certain type:
RESTATEMENT OF TORTS 2ND § 892B: “a substantial mistake concerning the nature of the invasion of his interests, or the extent of the harm to be expected from it.”
Here the appears to be a clear mistake as to the extent of the harm expected from the landing.
Please also note that trespass to chattels is not among the many other intentional torts for which the government is not liable under the statute.
In any event, the government is liable for all intentional torts caused by “investigative or law enforcement officers of the United States”: a definition which probably includes the U.S. Secret Service, which may well be the agency which arranged for the trespass.
John
Source: Biz
Hey maybe this explains Mass Supreme Court’s decision to charge the innocent drivers the fines as well as the guilty. Gotta pay for that airport damage somehow.
OS,
Those damn commies keep causing problems.
From a basic, practical sense, it is surprising that the advance team didn’t anticipate these problems. In this case, lack of planning appears to have left some damaged pavement – but a comparable screwup could have created much more serious safety/security problems.
Thanks, OS for noting that per-wheel bearing capacity. A few thoughts:
– The page OS linked to clearly labels the RUNWAYS with that bearing capacity. I take it this firefighting truck drove out onto the runways, then? If it only drove on to non-runway paved areas, then they may not have had information available to anticipate a problem.
– In most construction situations, there is a fair amount of margin of error built into everything. A 44k lb truck would exert 11k lbs per wheel, versus a rated capacity of 9k. In building construction, that kind of “exceeding rated capacity” wouldn’t be a good idea, but the margins of error we use in structural design can almost always handle 18% overage. If these numbers are right (9k lb capacity, 11k lb per wheel load) then I wonder if that pavement was built correctly and well maintained in the first place. But I design buildings – you really need a civil engineer who does pavement to give well-informed feedback on this issue.
Overall, I’m surprised that almost $700,000 in damage could be done in one “event”. (There may be a few examples in the past where property owners, um, er, round up when filing a law suit…) Also, I wonder if any damage done by the fire truck was not to the probably well-engineered runway paving, but to lowest-bidder, un-engineered paving of other areas….
Also, while this is listed as a privately owned airport, I wonder how much government funding of various sorts supports this type of airport?
Raff, OMG, hide the wimmin and children, the Socialists are coming, the Socialists are coming.
OS,
If the government uses stimulus money to fix the airport, that would be Socialism! 🙂
Wasn’t it Colin Powel that said “You break it, you bought it”? Or was that Pottery Barn?
OS, “fix the cracked and broken pavement they left” From the vid I posted I could see cracks when those little planes were taking off and taxi-ing. That looked like the kind of airport Waldo Pepper would be comfortable landing at. That’s not a bad thing- I’m not making fun of it. It looks perfectly serviceable for the planes that are parked there, it looks like it’s from a different era though and probably isn’t making anybody rich. The govt. ought to pay that bill.
Rafflaw, yes, the music was great. It looked like a scene out of the 40’s. 🙂
Raff, they were told that Marine helicopters would be landing,which are well within the load-bearing capacity of the field. They did not understand the implications. Heavy firetrucks and foam generating vehicles exceeded the capacity of the pavement. And I blame the Presidential advance team for failure to do a simple airport chart lookup (such as the link I posted) to see the pavement was only rated to 9.0.
The Administration needs to fix the cracked and broken pavement they left. The field was only in fair condition when they arrived and when they left it was in fair to poor condition. At the very minimum, direct some Airport & Airway Trust Fund money to the project. The airport needed upgrading anyway for safety reasons. Methinks the “Pottery Barn Rule” should apply here–break it and you buy it.
Lotta,
I loved your clip on the airport. Especially the soundtrack!
I have my doubts as to the allegations in this case. I can’t imagine that the locals were not informed by the advance teams that always precede a presidential visit of what was coming.
A shovel full of what wielded by whom is the question . . .
Bette Noir,
Well said … I add to lottakatz
🙂 🙂
Given all the bullshit that goes along with it I am starting to think the President shouldn’t be allowed to travel anywhere ever. I saw thousands of commuters in the Minneapolis/St.Paul area have their commutes disrupted for hours twice by Bush & once by VP Gore so I imagine that is the standard. My guess is the Obama bus tour that left here a couple weeks ago screwed up traffic all the way to Iowa. There are real costs to this malarkey.
Since the security is so critical it would be best if they just stayed home. Particularly since these are really campaign trips.
Many small airports do not have runways capable of handling heavy stuff. We had to cancel the appearance of the CAF B-24 Liberator “Diamond Lil” because it required a runway that could handle 68,000 pounds. Our airport has a lot higher runway and tarmac weight bearing capacity than Marboro. Our local airport has a single wheel weight bearing capacity of 25.0 while Marboro is rated at 9.0. That number is in thousands of pounds.
No wonder the airport was damaged. You do not have to be able to see the damage from a distance. If the pavement is cracked, water can get in it and do much more damage later. What you do not want is for potholes or cave-ins to occur where aircraft are operating.
Here is the information on Marboro:
http://www.airnav.com/airport/9B1
Bette Noir
🙂
I smell a shovel-ready project.
This doesn’t exactly look like the kind of traffic, air or otherwise, this particular airport was built to handle.
Nal,
It is possible that the grade was not sufficient to support the weight…That is why a number of municipal airports will not allow certain aircraft’s to land unless an emergency….I am sure someone else has a better answer than I….
A Gulfstream V weights 46,200 lb, empty, and has a max takeoff weight of 90,500 lb. An airport tarmac that can’t handle a fire truck? Something seems fishy with the airport’s claim.
Geeze…they could solve all of this by just saying “The Check is in the mail”…..
The video does show a large entourage but not any damage.
If they were expecting a chopper, The President, two bodyguards and a limo, I don’t know, maybe the airport owner is not from America.
Unless they got a paper trail that proof that The Secret Service promised not to bring their regular/standard equipment for The President’s protection, they have no case.