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).
Tags: personal responsibility, Port AuthorityFiscal blow to Port Authority is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system