Defense counsel came to Baltimore to settle 9/11 cases

Daily Record, The (Baltimore), Oct 15, 2007 by Brendan Kearney

Last year and continuing through May, a New York mediator sat in on some discussions. Non-mediated discussions continued throughout, some initiated by the plaintiffs, some by the defendants, said Lipowitz.

He would not say what the obstacles to settlement were, just that there were "a variety...most of which were not about the money."

In early September, Lipowitz said, his firm settled the case of 41-year-old Sigrid Wiswe, whose floor in the north tower of the World Trade Center was hit by American Airlines Flight 11, with the airlines and security companies. Wiswe's (pronounced Viz-vuh) claims against the so-called ground defendants -- architects and contractors of the building -- have not yet been resolved.

Final push

Lipowitz said comments and a ruling by Hellerstein at the six- year anniversary of the attacks gave the Marylanders' cases the final shove toward resolution.

"The judge on September 11 of this year in open court encouraged the parties to get beyond the impasse and he very compassionately recommended that the victims of 9/11 choose life," Lipowitz recounted.

The next day, Hellerstein ruled a jury would be allowed to hear a few minutes of the cockpit recording from United Airlines Flight 93, which crashed in a field outside Shanksville, Pa. That ruling led to the airline settling 14 of the remaining 17 suits against it and had a similar effect on Lipowitz's cases against American.

"The issue for us was the videotape that was taken of the [Washington] Dulles [International Airport] checkpoint showing the 9/ 11 hijackers passing through security even though they were setting off the magnetometer," he said. "And that showed some of the failures of the checkpoint screeners to follow their own procedures."

Lipowitz said "there had been some earlier battles over the video," but the issue would not be judged until one of the American Airlines Flight 77 cases reached the top of the trial docket.

Of the 95 suits filed, 53 settled in mediation, he said.

Lipowitz said Hellerstein docketed six of the remaining open cases for trial, two of which were Azrael, Gann & Franz clients.

First trial Nov. 5

The settlement of the 14 suits against United Airlines left 21 open cases -- 22 if you count Wiswe's partial settlement -- and made the new first trial date Nov. 5, Lipowitz said.

An American Airlines Flight 77 case is scheduled for trial that day, he said. Wiswe's claim is the next scheduled for a trial on damages.

This confluence of recent and upcoming events gave his cases momentum, Lipowitz said.

"At that point we had reached a critical mass in our presentation of the case," he said. "The defendants, recognizing that, reached out to us...and they accepted our framework."

The details of the breakthrough meeting concerning the Maryland plaintiffs and the resulting settlement are confidential, said Lipowitz.

"The only way we're actually going to get a...view of what happened here is having one of these cases go to trial," said Perry Binder, legal studies professor at the Georgia State University Robinson College of Business, who has followed the Sept. 11 litigation closely. "Is anybody actually going to take this to trial? I think maybe."