## Facts

- A Lockheed-manufactured C-5A transport aircraft crashed near Saigon on April 4, 1975 while evacuating Vietnamese infants and young children; many were killed or injured.
- Numerous suits were filed on behalf of infant survivors alleging negligent design and manufacture of the aircraft.
- Early bellwether-style trials proceeded individually and featured extensive expert evidence on whether crash forces could cause or aggravate injury in children.
- In two early trials, juries found crash forces proximately caused or aggravated injuries; in a third trial, a defense verdict was later set aside and a new trial ordered.
- Lockheed later stipulated it would not contest liability to infant survivors for injuries proximately caused or aggravated by the crash, leaving injury, specific causation, and damages as the remaining trial questions.

## Issues

1. Whether plaintiffs could use nonmutual offensive collateral estoppel to preclude Lockheed (and the United States, as third-party defendant) from relitigating the general issue whether crash forces were capable of causing or aggravating injuries in children.
2. Whether applying offensive issue preclusion in serial, multi-plaintiff trials would be fair under the factors governing discretionary use of offensive collateral estoppel.

## Decision

- The court granted the plaintiff’s motion in limine, treated as a motion for partial summary judgment.
- Lockheed was precluded from relitigating the general causation proposition that crash forces were insufficient, as a matter of general capability, to cause or aggravate injury in children.
- The ruling was ordered to be incorporated into a comprehensive pretrial order governing the remaining infant-survivor trials.
- Remaining trials were limited to individualized questions (whether a child has an injury, whether it was in fact caused or aggravated in that child by the crash, and damages), not the relitigated general-capability defense.

## Legal Principles

- Nonmutual offensive collateral estoppel may be applied when the issue was actually litigated and decided, the determination was essential to the prior judgment, and the party to be bound had a full and fair opportunity to litigate.
- A court retains discretion to deny offensive issue preclusion if it would be unfair, including where plaintiffs could have joined earlier actions, where the defendant lacked incentive to litigate, where valid inconsistent judgments exist, or where application would encourage “wait and see” tactics.
- Prior verdicts finding proximate causation or aggravation necessarily determine that the challenged forces were capable of causing such injury; that general-capability determination may be preclusive in later trials when essential to the earlier judgments.
- A vacated or set-aside verdict does not create a valid inconsistent judgment that defeats offensive issue preclusion.
- Case-management considerations may support preclusion where repetitive relitigation of the same general issue across many trials would impose substantial burdens without advancing due process interests, particularly when the defendant previously opposed consolidation.

## Conclusion

The court used discretionary nonmutual offensive collateral estoppel to streamline mass-injury litigation by binding the aircraft manufacturer to prior jury determinations on general causation, while preserving individualized proof of injury, specific causation, and damages for each infant survivor.


Friends for All Child., Inc. v. Lockheed Aircraft Corp., 497 F. Supp. 313 (D.D.C. 1980)