If the agency is indeed made to pay $1.8 billion for not preventing the first (1993) bombing, as suggested by this week’s jury verdict (Oct. 27), it could be forced “to reduce drastically its spending on the region’s airports, bridges and tunnels,” its leaders say. Hmmm… since security measures are among the big items in the current budget, might that not have menacing implications for future anti-terrorist preparedness all by itself? And Mark Geistfeld, a law prof at NYU, agrees that “It’s really hard to get your mind around” the jury’s finding that the terrorists themselves were only 32 percent responsible for the outrage, with the agency responsible for 68 percent. (Anemona Hartocollis and Patrick McGeehan, “Port Authority Fears Costs From Verdict”, New York Times, Oct. 28). More: the Times has a fascinating article about winning plaintiff’s lawyer David J. Dean, who bounced back from disbarment (Oct. 30). Yet more: David Bernstein, Orin Kerr and commenters. And the Washington Examiner blasts the verdict in an editorial that kindly quotes me (“Blame the terrorists, not their victims”, Oct. 31).
Fiscal blow to Port Authority
If the agency is indeed made to pay $1.8 billion for not preventing the first (1993) bombing, as suggested by this week’s jury verdict (Oct. 27), it could be forced “to reduce drastically its spending on the region’s airports, bridges and tunnels,” its leaders say. Hmmm… since security measures are among the big items in […]
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Yes, indeed it is hard to understand what this jury was thinking. None of the persons in the Port Authority who allegedly made the bad decisions that led to the finding of negligence will have to pay, only the taxpayers. But what do you expect from a jury? and the finding of 68 per cent liability vs. 32 per cent for the actual bombers? Makes no sense whatsoever. The appellate court should toss this verdict as contrary to the weight of the evidence.
Jury Says that Terrorists Only 32% Responsible for First WTC Bombing:
In yet another ridiculous civil jury verdict, a New York jury held that the Port Authority …
Is the jury >51% responsible for this verdict?
The land pirates strike again.
Haberman on Port Authority verdict
New York Times columnist Clyde Haberman, on a jury’s determination last week (Oct. 27, Oct. 29) that negligent security on the part of New York’s Port Authority was more responsible for the damage from the…