Federal judge says duty owed to terror victims
U.S. District Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein, in the Southern District of New York, has ruled that airlines, airport security companies, airport operators and airplane manufacturers had the duty to protect from harm both passengers on the jets hijacked Sept. 11, 1001, and anyone in the path of the planes.
This decision provides guidance as to “how a future court might deal with liability for terrorism in the maritime sector,” said Dennis Bryant, an admiralty attorney in Washington, D.C.
Shippers of cargo as well as shipowners, vessel and port facility operators “should carefully review their security situation, despite the current absence of many specific legal requirements,” Bryant told Shippers’ News Wire.
Hellerstein rejected a motion by airline-oriented defendants to dismiss lawsuits brought by families of victims of the attacks in New York, both the dead and the injured.
“There were few legal requirements for the defendants in these cases, yet the court found sufficient cause for the claims to go forward,” Bryant said.
Boeing, one of the defendants, argued that cockpit doors had been as secure as the FAA required before the hijackings. “The judge essentially said, ‘that’s not good enough’ — Boeing should have made the doors impenetrable, because of its knowledge of how other planes had been hijacked,” Bryant explained.
“Terrorists have already made attacks in the maritime arena,” Bryant said. “In the light of recent events, two lessons can be learned: (1) compliance with all applicable legal requirements is required, but not necessarily sufficient, and (2) virtually anything is now considered foreseeable.”