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Atlanta—Milliken & Company faces its first trial next week in a series of related cases stemming from a February 2013 plane crash that killed five. McCorkle, et al. v. Milliken & Company, 15EV000163.
Heidi McCorkle, 28, and four others were killed when the small business jet in which they were flying struck a 72-foot-tall concrete utility pole following an aborted landing at Georgia's Thomson-McDuffie Regional Airport.
The utility pole stood on Milliken property adjoining the airport, land that was part of an aviation easement the company granted more than 20 years before the pole was placed.
According to court documents, the McCorkle family’s legal team, led by Moraitakis & Kushel’s Nicholas Moraitakis, contends Milliken is at fault for allowing Georgia Power to erect a pole that violated the easement, as part of an additional power supply the company requested to support its expansion.
Milliken attorneys, which include Drew Eckl & Farnham’s Lisa Richardson and Stevan Miller, argue the company did not control the pole or the airspace surrounding it and owed no duty to ensure Georgia Power's pole complied with the easement.
Georgia Power was one of several codefendants named along with Milliken in the original complaint. Milliken remains the only defendant to face trial in the case.
McCorkle and the others killed in the crash were employees of The Vein Guys, a vascular medical practice.
Trial in Fulton County State Court, before Judge Jay Roth, is expected to last about two weeks. CVN will live stream the trial and provide updates via its news page.
Email Arlin Crisco at acrisco@cvn.com.
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CVN will provide gavel-to-gavel coverage of the trial, live and on demand.