About John Glenn
John J. Glenn is a senior partner at AndersonGlenn LLP and manages the firm's Boca Raton office. He joined the firm in 1993 and maintains a civil litigation and appellate practice concentrated on automobile and boat manufacturer defense as well as personal injury cases, with more than a decade of reported appellate decisions involving automotive manufacturers and insurance coverage in Florida state and federal courts. He earned a B.A. from The George Washington University, where he played on the varsity baseball team and earned academic all-conference honors, followed by a J.D. and an LL.M. from the University of Miami School of Law. He is a member of the Broward Bar Association and the National Institute of Trial Advocacy.
Proven verdicts and settlements
William Coultas, the copilot who survived a 2008 helicopter crash that killed nine people on the Iron Complex fire in Northern California, sued General Electric over the engine's fuel control unit after suffering severe burns. A Multnomah County jury in Portland found GE 57 percent at fault on March 27, 2012 and awarded $42,000,000 to Coultas and his wife as part of a $70,455,000 verdict that also compensated the pilot's estate. Because Oregon makes defendants severally liable for their own share of fault, the couple's judgment was entered at $23,940,000. GE said it would appeal, and court records show the judgment was still on appeal in August 2013. A later federal opinion states the plaintiffs ultimately settled with all of the defendants.
In 2012, a federal jury in Portland found General Electric responsible for a defective helicopter engine component in the 2008 crash that killed veteran firefighting pilot Roark Schwanenberg during the Iron 44 wildfire response. The jury awarded his estate $28,455,000 and put 57 percent of the fault on GE. A related Massachusetts court opinion recites that Oregon's wrongful-death damages cap and the jury's fault allocation cut that award to $1,329,350, and that the reduced judgment was on appeal. Oregon lawmakers later cited this same case while pushing to raise the state's wrongful-death cap.
Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Each case is unique and depends on its own facts.
