9/11 widow first to sue Saudis under new law

WASHINGTON -- A woman widowed when her husband was killed at the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001, sued Saudi Arabia just two days after Congress enacted legislation allowing Americans to sue foreign governments accused of playing a role in terrorist attacks on U.S. soil.

Stephanie Ross DeSimone alleged that the kingdom provided material support to al-Qaida and its leader, Osama bin Laden, in a complaint filed Friday at a U.S. court in Washington. Her suit is also filed on behalf of the couple's daughter. DeSimone was pregnant when Navy Cmdr. Patrick Dunn was killed.

Fifteen of the 19 men who hijacked airliners used in the attacks were Saudis. One jet struck the Pentagon, seat of the U.S. military, and two others destroyed the World Trade Center's twin towers in New York, while a fourth crashed in a Pennsylvania field as its passengers fought back against the hijackers.

A U.S. commission that investigated the 2001 attacks said in a 2004 report that it "found no evidence that the Saudi government, as an institution, or senior officials within the Saudi government funded al-Qaeda." Long-classified portions of a congressional inquiry released in July found the hijackers may have had help from some Saudi officials.

The kingdom has denied culpability. Its embassy didn't immediately reply to an emailed message seeking comment on the suit.

An official at Saudi Arabia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs told the state-run Saudi Press Agency on Thursday that the U.S. Congress must correct the 9/11 bill to avoid "serious unintended consequences," adding the law is of "great concern" to the Kingdom.

Opponents of the measure, including President Barack Obama, whose veto of the measure was overidden by Congress, argue that opening the Saudis to liability could prompt that nation and others to take similar steps against the U.S. by targeting American troops with lawsuits.

DeSimone, who is suing for wrongful death and intentional infliction of emotional distress, is seeking unspecified compensatory and punitive damages.

The case is DeSimone v. Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, 16-cv-1944, U.S. District Court, District of Columbia (Washington).

'a powerful doubt'

With the law enacted by Congress this week, some families are enjoying a victory, including Kathy Owens, whose husband, Peter, died in the 2001 attacks.

"If our government had investigated and prosecuted the financiers of 9/11, we wouldn't have had to do it," said Owens, who was among victims' relatives who traveled to Washington to stage a rally at the Capitol.

But some other 9/11 relatives think it's a mistake to try to cram the complexities of 9/11 into a courtroom.

Donald Goodrich, who lost his son, Peter, has "a powerful doubt that any fact not now known will significantly change the picture for me." A civil trial lawyer himself, he notes that a jury would be focusing on a specific aspect of Sept. 11, not weighing it within the broader consideration of international relations and national security.

"I want to leave it where it belongs ... and not color it and potentially tip the balance of it through a private litigation process," Goodrich said. "The things that are needed to keep us safe are so very different from the issues that are going to be tried in the lawsuit."

Legal experts say that just because Congress has allowed families to sue Saudi Arabia doesn't mean such a case will ever go before a jury.

Collecting a judgment against a foreign government is extraordinarily hard, said David Strachman, a plaintiffs' lawyer who has been trying to recoup more than $71 million he was awarded in a 2001 lawsuit against Iran for bankrolling those who carried out a 1997 triple-suicide bombing in Jerusalem.

"It's very difficult against foreign sovereigns," he said. Accumulating evidence proving another country provided material support is "tremendously difficult," he said. Even with U.S. law permitting such suits, they're tried before a judge, not a jury, leaving less room for popular sentiment.

new exception

The four-page law carves out a new exception to sovereign immunity -- the legal doctrine that protects foreign governments from lawsuits -- if a plaintiff claims to have suffered injury in the U.S. from terrorism.

A sovereign-immunity law on the books since 1976 already contained an exception for terrorist attacks backed by countries on the State Department's list of state sponsors of terrorism.

The measure enacted this week alters the 1976 law to allow lawsuits against countries that aren't designated state sponsors of terrorism if they're found to have played any role in attacks that kill Americans on U.S. soil.

"I am concerned that this will do very little for the victims," said Paul Stephan, a professor of international law at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. Testifying before a congressional panel on July 14, he opposed the measure, explaining, "were it adopted as law, [it] would likely harm the U.S. by increasing its exposure to litigation abroad."

He said then, and reiterated in an interview this week, that nations sued as sponsors of terrorism typically object to the suits as a violation of international law and refuse to participate. Victims' families win judgments by default, but find it all but impossible to collect on them.

Families of Sept. 11 victims first sued Saudi Arabia in 2002. The federal court in Manhattan dismissed most of the claims in 2005 based on the law limiting suits against sovereign nations. The federal appeals court in New York reinstated claims against Saudi Arabia in 2013, then sent the case back to the lower court -- which dismissed them again two years later.

In that case, U.S. District Judge George Daniels in Manhattan last year criticized much of the new evidence that lawyers for families say has emerged to strengthen their claims, including offers to testify at a trial from the imprisoned Zacarias Moussaoui -- known as the "20th hijacker."

In tossing out Saudi Arabia as a defendant, Daniels called some of the new claims "entirely conclusory" and others "largely boilerplate."

The case is now back before the appeals court, which is considering whether the nation can be sued by victims of the 9/11 attacks.

Still, plaintiffs say just airing their argument in court would be a victory in itself. "We're less interested in any kind of financial gain than we are in bringing the truly guilty into court and making our case known," said Alice Hoagland, who lost her son, Mark Bingham.

But they also are hoping for a financial award: "It's the only tool that I know that we have" to make accountability hit home, Owens said.

Thomas Corcoran Jr., a lawyer who represented Iran in the 1997 Jerusalem bombing case, however, called the legislation an act of hubris, warning it could lead to the U.S. being exposed for litigation over errant drone or artillery strikes.

"I can see why Congress did it. They're dealing with the average guy," he said. "But I have fears we might regret it."

Information for this article was contributed by Andrew Harris and Nick Wadhams, Bob Van Voris, Nafeesa Syeed and Greg Farrell of Bloomberg News and by Larry Neumeister and Jennifer Peltz of The Associated Press.

A Section on 10/01/2016

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