Lidle widow ordered to pay $80,000 in suit

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NEW YORK, Feb. 4 (UPI) -- A federal court has ordered the wife of Cory Lidle to pay $80,000 after losing a lawsuit over a plane crash that killed the former New York Yankees pitcher.

Lidle and pilot Tyler Stanger died in 2006 when Lidle's Cirrus SR20 allegedly malfunctioned and crashed into an Upper East Side high-rise building.

The victims' wives, Melanie Lidle and Stephanie Stanger, sued aircraft maker Cirrus Design Corp., alleging defects in the design of Lidle's aircraft caused its controls to lock up during a U-turn over the East River.

In 2011, a federal jury in Manhattan sided with Cirrus, and an appeals court unanimously upheld the verdict in January.

The court then ordered Lidle and Stanger to pay for Cirrus' court costs, which are more than $80,000, the New York Post reported Monday.

"It's an injustice compounded on an injustice," said Todd Macaluso, a lawyer representing Melanie Lidle.

Macaluso blamed the court's judgment on pretrial rulings that kept jurors from learning Cirrus had recalled all SR20 aircraft and changed the manufacturing process after Lidle and Stanger's crash.