Johnson v. Jacobs

Amid a divorce, flight student Eric Johnson obtained keys from an airport employee who recognized him as a scheduled student, but instead of taxiing out to wait for his instructor as required, he took off alone with his eight-year-old daughter aboard, called his wife Beth Johnson (plaintiff) three times mid-flight while yelling and cursing, and about twenty minutes later deliberately crashed the plane - approaching as if to land but banking hard and nosing down at 45 degrees - directly into his mother-in-law's house, killing himself and his daughter; the National Transportation Safety Board ruled suicide the probable cause. Beth sued flight instructor Tony Newbold, the Lawrence County Aviation Board, and the County Commissioners (defendants) for wrongful death, alleging their failure to secure the airplane and prevent an unqualified, unaccompanied flight proximately caused the crash; the trial court granted summary judgment for the defendants, finding Eric's intentional acts a superseding cause, and Beth appealed.