Thursday, March 30, 2000
Suit against Boeing to trial
Issue: helicopter parts Army used
BY MIKE BOYER
The Cincinnati Enquirer
A whistle-blower's multimillion dollar lawsuit accusing Boeing Co. of supplying faulty helicopter parts to the Army is headed to trial following a Cincinnati federal judge's ruling on remaining motions.
Brett Roby, a former quality inspector for Speco, a defunct Springfield, Ohio, supplier to Boeing, filed suit in 1995 claiming that Boeing knew Speco supplied faulty transmission gears for the Army's Chinook twin-rotor helicopters.
In a 60-page decision released this week, District Judge S. Arthur Spiegel denied requests for summary judgments by both Boeing and attorneys for Mr. Roby and the U.S. government, which has joined his lawsuit.
“The court finds that genuine issues of material fact exists,” Judge Spiegel wrote.
James Helmer Jr., one of Mr. Roby's lawyers, said, “This (ruling) clears up all the impediments to trial. A jury will now get to decide this case.”
Judge Spiegel has set a jury trial, a rarity in a whistle-blower case, for September in Cincinnati. Mr. Helmer said there are no current discussions between the government and Boeing to resolve the case.
Mr. Roby and the government say faulty gears caused two Army helicopter crashes, one of which killed five U.S. soldiers in Honduras in 1988. Boeing denies wrongdoing.
Mr. Roby sued under the False Claims Act, a Civil War-era law that allows private citizens to sue entities they think defrauded the government. The law allows a plaintiff to collect triple the amount of damages.
Last month, the Army temporary grounded the Chinook helicopters for the second time in the past year, to inspect and remove transmission gears made with an metal alloy known as Vasco X2M and machined by Speco.
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