by Robin Clewley
2:00 a.m. March 22, 2001 PST
For two hours, Flight 58 cruises steadily
with the Gulf Stream. Suddenly the plane shoots skyward, and two seconds
later plummets hundreds of feet.
Passengers scream in terror, luggage flies
through the air, hot coffee scalds flight attendants, and pilots' knuckles
whiten, gripped around their controls.
The plane doesn't crash. Severe turbulence,
not mechanical failure, caused the plane to dive.
There are no serious injuries.
But American Airlines still will surrender
$2.2 million in what remains the largest pay out in history for an air-turbulence
case. Credit a compelling clip of computer animation. 
"The
emotion that we were getting with that animation, it was like a bomb
went off in the plane," said Ken Lopez, whose company developed
the animation for the trial, which involved a McDonnell Douglas DC-10-10,
regarding a 1995 flight from Los Angeles to New York.
To demonstrate their case, attorneys representing
13 passengers from American Airlines Flight 58 showed a two-dimensional
animation of the incident to a Manhattan jury. With a picture of the
Statue of Liberty on the screen to lend scale, the plane's rise and
fall matched the height of the statue.
"It was much more powerful than having
an expert explain, 'OK, five seconds into this encounter the plane was
at 35,000, then it dropped 200 feet, then it climbed 300 feet,'"
said Daniel Rose, one of the attorneys.
But the plaintiffs' success in the case does
not exactly portend a future where courtrooms are saturated with cartoons.
Computer-generated animation is not only expensive but it is not always
effective.
For reality-based computer animation to be
admissible in court, it must correspond directly to the evidence before
the jury can see it. The judge sees it first during the presentation
of evidence. If it does not correspond directly, the judge can throw
it out, said trial attorney Jack King.
But the animation, created by Animators at
Law, worked perfectly in the American Airlines case. The team, staffed
by attorneys as well as animation artists, "translates the complex
and boring and makes it interesting and understandable," Lopez
said.
"The ultimate (award) was 10 times the
amount American Airlines expected to hand out," Rose said.
The risk doesn't always outweigh the gain.
"If you turn (the animation) into a video
game or some sort of carnival ride, you're taking away the effects of
a tragic event," Rose said. "You could minimize or diminish
the actual incident."
The expense of computer animation has dropped
dramatically since the mid-1980s, when costs were measured in thousands
of dollars per second, King said. However, expert fees have gone up.
If the client isn't wealthy, the last thing they will spend money on
is computer animation.
Animators at Law charges between $50,000 to
$200,000 per case.
"It's not cheap," said attorney
Robert Clifford, who is representing the families of the victims in
last year's crash of Alaska Airlines 261. "Bring your checkbook."
Clifford said he plans to use computer animation
for the case, tentatively scheduled to go to trial in April 2002.
Roger L. McCarthy, chairman of Exponent, an
engineering firm that provides technical experts for trials and develops
animation for the courtroom, believes computer animation and video can
hurt a case. If it's technically inaccurate or tugs too much at the
juror's heartstrings, the strategy can backfire, he said.
"There is great possibility of error,"
he said.
McCarthy once saw a courtroom animation depicting
a mechanical
device working with reverse gravity.
The discrepancy between animations that are
scientifically accurate and those that are created to "win,"
is vast, McCarthy said.
"The thing that sets us apart from (engineering
animation companies) is that our mission is to persuade and to win,"
Lopez said. "Engineers are not taught that mindset."
McCarthy said it's the judge's job to throw
out evidence when the emotion evoked by an animated film outweighs the
evidence. But many judges will leave it to be cross-examined by the
opposing attorney in court, he said.
And regardless of the accuracy of the animation,
it can have devastating effects on a jury because of the amount of information
to be absorbed visually. Nevertheless, Rose said computer animation
makes the story easier to tell, even though it doesn't necessarily increase
the odds of winning a case.
Lopez said the beauty of computer animation
is that it can captivate a jury.
"Juries will think, 'They created a little
PBS show for me. I'm going to remember everything now.'"
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