FRANCE-CRASH/GERMANY COMPENSATION Crash victims' families reject Germanwings compensation offer

Record ID: 146723

  • Title: FRANCE-CRASH/GERMANY COMPENSATION Crash victims' families reject Germanwings compensation offer
  • Date: 19th July 2015
  • Summary: BAD AIBLING, GERMANY (JULY 19, 2015) (REUTERS) (SOUNDBITE) (German) LAWYER OF SOME OF THE GERMAN VICTIMS, ELMAR GIEMULLA, SAYING: "It is extremely difficult to compensate psychological processes or human suffering in numbers. Actually it is impossible. But after all a payment should be seen as a certain recognition, a recognition that the ones somehow involved in the catas
  • Embargoed: 3rd August 2015 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Germany
  • Country: Germany
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVA9XPXE7Z58QH7T5LLACSBQCAWR
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: Some of the close relatives of those killed in the Germanwings plane crash in March have rejected the carrier's offer of 25,000 euros (17,304 pounds), plus 10,000 euros for each immediate next of kin, in compensation for their pain and suffering.
    A lawyer representing some of the German victims, Elmar Giemulla, said on Sunday (July 19) he had notified Germanwings earlier this week in a letter that the offer was inadequate.
    "The offers are too low, they are not reflecting what has happened, the emotional distress of the bereaved, who were robbed of their family members in a very tragic way. Parents, who have lost their children, siblings who lost their sisters and brothers, all this is not what you would expect when you are a child or when you are a parent, that your children dies in front of you. To settle on this emotional distress and complete new orientation with 10,000 euros is far below what could be seen as acceptable," Giemulla told Reuters TV in Bad Aibling.
    "The surviving members of the family feel hurt and offended by this offer. Lufthansa acted very fair in the first weeks and months, they showed themselves to be very compasionate and approachable. The bereaved found it very comforting and didn't see Lufthansa as an opponent but rather also as a victim. This positive image, which Lufthansa won with the bereaved, has now been destroyed by this low offer. The people perceive the actions of Lufthansa after the catastrophe as part of a strategy aimed at abasing them as the pawn of their own interests," he said.
    He added a low six-digit amount would be adequate compensation: "200,000 would be wrong or right, but surely better than 10,000 euros," Giemulla said.
    Germanwings, a unit of Lufthansa, was not immediately available to comment outside usual business hours.
    Evidence shows co-pilot Andreas Lubitz locked the captain out of the cockpit of Germanwings flight 4U9525 from Barcelona to Duesseldorf and deliberately steered the plane into a remote mountainside, killing all 150 onboard.
    The 25,000-euro offer is on top of 50,000 euros already paid as immediate financial assistance to relatives. German law does not usually provide for a separate award for pain and suffering, unlike in the United States.
    The proposed payout for emotional distress would be made to parents, widowed spouses, partners and children of the victims and does not require proof of damages incurred to be presented in order for it to be made, Germanwings said in June.
    Relatives living in Germany may also claim an additional 10,000 euros each as compensation for any health problems without needing to offer formal proof, the company said.
    Families of the victims still have the right to make further claims for other financial costs, such as burial costs or lost pensions, although this will require proof of damages incurred.
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
  • Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2015. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
  • Usage Terms/Restrictions: None
Register