World Trade Center Cases
In 2003, Hellerstein agreed to hear a consolidated master case against three airlines, ICTS International NV and Pinkerton's airport security firms, the World Trade Center owners, and Boeing Co., the aircraft manufacturer. The case was brought by people injured in the attacks, representatives of those who died, and entities that suffered property damage. In September 2004, just before the three-year statute of limitations expired, the insurers for the World Trade Center filed suit against American Airlines, United Airlines, and Pinkerton's airport security firm, alleging their negligence allowed the planes to be hijacked. Because the Air Transportation Act, which was passed after the September 11, 2001 attacks, limits the liability of airlines, aircraft manufacturers, and airports to the amount of their insurance coverage, this case will likely be combined with the consolidated master case filed in 2003.
On January 12, 2006, Hellerstein dismissed the last remaining property-damage claim against New York City, while leaving pending several other suits against other parties, among them the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. According to Reuters, "ix insurers sought repayment from the city for expenses arising from the collapse of a 47-story office building near the Twin Towers"; Hellerstein ruled New York had immunity.
The World Trade Center first responders (e.g., police and fire fighters) and the city conflicted with each other over the issue of payments for health costs of survivors among the first responders. On October 17, 2006 federal judge Alvin K. Hellerstein rejected New York City's motion to dismiss lawsuits that requested health payments to the first responders.
Alvin Hellerstein, on July 7, 2008 ruled that "the city is not required to re-sift through debris from ground zero in search of bits of human remains and remove it to a space where a cemetery might be built (thereby leaving the material from ground zero at Fresh Kills landfills). Plaintiffs have no property right in an undifferentiated, unidentifiable mass of dirt that may or may not contain the remains of plaintiffs' loved ones. Not every wrong can be addressed through the judicial process." Hellerstein urged the city to build a memorial and nature reserve at the site. Victims' families' counsel Norman Siegel criticized the ruling: "We are not prepared to leave hundreds of human remains of 9/11 victims on top of a garbage dump as their final resting place."
Read more about this topic: Alvin Hellerstein
Famous quotes containing the words world, trade, center and/or cases:
“This seems to be advanced as the surest basis for our belief in the existence of gods, that there is no race so uncivilized, no one in the world so barbarous that his mind has no inkling of a belief in gods.”
—Marcus Tullius Cicero (106–43 B.C.)
“...I lost myself in my work and never felt that marriage would give me the security I wanted. I thought that through the trade union movement we working women could get better conditions and security of mind.”
—Mary Anderson (1872–1964)
“This is a strange little complacent country, in many ways a U.S.A. in miniature but of course nearer the center of disturbance!”
—Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962)
“To think is of itself to be useful; it is always and in all cases a striving toward God.”
—Victor Hugo (1802–1885)