9/11 Lawsuits Will Get Their Day in Court

[cal04]

In the days after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, while much of the country was still stunned and grieving, Michelle Cottom was being forced to deal with an ugly bottom line. How much was her child’s life worth?

The Cottoms — and the families of 41 other victims — may soon get an answer as the little-noticed lawsuits they have brought against the airlines, security companies and other parties move toward a trial in a Manhattan courtroom.

Mrs. Cottom’s 11-year-old daughter, Asia, a passenger on American Airlines Flight 77, died when hijackers crashed the plane into the Pentagon. She and her husband, Clifton, soon had to choose between taking what they perceived as a minimal award from a federal fund set up to compensate victims or calling one of the many lawyers who had sent what Mrs. Cottom calls “advertising packages” and filing a lawsuit.


(snip)
The plaintiffs are people like Mike Low, whose 28-year-old daughter, Sara, was a flight attendant on American Airlines Flight 11, the first plane to crash into the World Trade Center. For Mr. Low, it is strange for the airlines to deny that they could have anticipated the attacks, because, he says, his daughter was offered antiterrorist insurance as one of her fringe benefits, and took it.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/04/nyregion/04cases.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

[seemslikeadream]

1. antiterrorist insurance as one of her fringe benefits

:wow:

[bluestateguy]

2. Those private security companies should be sued out of existence

And the boneheads who worked for them should never be allowed to work for TSA.