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The Evidence for Animation
by Matthew Davis & Karen R. Dodge
(originally appeared as an article in Advocate: The Journal of the
Consumer Attorneys Association of Los Angeles, December 2001)
Technological advances in many fields have changed the world dramatically in
recent years. Unquestionably, the legal profession has been swept up by this
revolution, too. In the past ten years, computer animation has become more
prevalent in mediation talks and in the courtroom. As a mediation or settlement
tool, animation excels at cementing one’s position, and demonstrating one’s
preparedness. In trial, there is often no better way to hold a jury’s attention
and generate dramatic tension. When constructed by a skilled animator, this
type of computer simulation is both extremely accurate and undeniably
captivating. It can fairly and effectively portray a wide variety of scenarios.
One particular plaintiff’s case that profited immeasurably from use of
animation recently settled extremely favorably out of court. Here is the story
of that case which began back in June 1997…
It is four years ago, and a documentary film crew has just begun recording the
flight of two men determined to circumnavigate the earth in a small single
engine plane. Several months into the journey, the plane is preparing for a
scheduled landing in Northern Canada on the clear-cut valley floor. The film
crew’s camera captures the plane as it approaches the valley, circles around
and aligns itself with a level grass-covered strip of land. The plane throttles
back, descends gracefully and just as the wheels are about to touch down, the
pilot suddenly aborts the landing fearing there is not enough room to safely
stop the plane. Thus, the single-engine Mooney floats across the grassy field
toward the 20-foot tall spires of the evergreen forest as it tries desperately
to gain altitude. The camera crew loses sight of the plane as it brushes over
the increasingly higher treetops blanketing the steep mountainside. Moments
later, the film crew hears the staccato cracking of the plane crashing through
the forest canopy and onto the ground.
Fifteen minutes pass before the crew reaches the crash site. They find the
disintegrated and molten carcass of a fuselage engulfed in flames with one wing
severely clipped, and the other wing completely sheared off. The two occupants
are found approximately 100 feet from the plane. The pilot is nearly dead as a
result of untold burn wounds completely covering his body. The passenger is
lying nearby in a foggy delirium of pain with severe burns over eighty percent
of his body. This passenger is a German citizen named Bernie Heitz. He survived
these horrific events.
After undergoing eighteen months of complicated surgeries and ongoing
rehabilitation, Heitz approached attorney Terry Butler seeking to file a
lawsuit in hopes of ameliorating the costs of past and planned medical
procedures. He recalled the events to Butler, who learned, interestingly, that
when the plane had initially crashed, both Heitz and his friend, pilot Harald
Fresenius, were relatively unhurt. In fact, Heitz had safely exited the plane
before going back to retrieve Fresenius, who was looking for something he had
lost in the crash. Just as Heitz pulled him from the cockpit, flames burst out
from behind the seats and swallowed them instantly. The merciless inferno left
Heitz almost fatally wounded, and ultimately killed Fresenius who died after 32
days in a burn ward. Butler now focused on the elusive cause of the mysterious
cockpit fire.
One of the final legs of the Heitz and Fresenius’ earth-orbiting odyssey was to
be over the Pacific ocean from Honululu, Hawaii to Palo Alto, California.
Because of the Mooney’s limited fuel capacity, the two men hired a local
airplane repair service to install auxiliary "ferry tanks" behind the seats in
the cockpit. After a lengthy, painstaking review of the crash site video
footage, Butler and his expert, Abdon Llorente, believed that the inadequate
and unsafe installation of this fuel system had caused the deadly fire. The
flames had been almost exclusively contained in the rear of the cockpit,
precisely where the ferry tanks had been tied down. Had the plane’s main fuel
tanks ruptured, the fire would have erupted on the wings, but the video footage
and scene photos suggested otherwise. This discovery answered the question of
"what" had caused the fire, but "how" was still unknown.
Continues... Page 2
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