FEDERAL COURT AWARDS MULTI-BILLION DOLLAR TERRORIST JUDGMENT AGAINST LIBYA

Ronald A. Goodbread, Legal Editor

U.S. District Court Judge Henry H. Kennedy, Jr. recently issued a judgment in the principal amount of $1.7 billion against the Social People's Libyan Republic and six high-ranking Libyan government officials, including the brother-in-law of Libyan leader Muammar Kaddafi. The judgment was granted on behalf of the families of seven U.S. citizens who perished, along with 163 others, in the 1989 in-flight explosion of Flight 772, operated by a major French airline, over the Sahara Desert in Niger. Later investigation found that the explosion had been caused by a suitcase bomb planted aboard the aircraft. The Islamic Jihad organization claimed responsibility for the terrorist act while others attributed it to Libya as retribution for France's support of Chad during Libya's expansionist activities against that country.

In 2004, the Libyan Government issued a public "statement of responsibility" for the actions of its officials after a French court had awarded damages for all passengers, many of whom also accepted a settlement from Libya; the average award was slightly over $1,000,000. The families of the seven Americans, however, rejected both and pursued their remedies in U.S. District Court here under the "terrorist exception" to the Foreign Service Immunities Act, 28 U.S.C. Section 1605(a)(7).

As a result of that local litigation, one family was awarded actual and compensatory damages of $112,335,000, including lost wages, benefits, retirement pay over the victim's life expectancy, as well as an award for pain and suffering. The extended family of a naturalized U.S. citizen, originally from Romania, received a similar award of $109,044,000, and the family of a former U.S. Ambassador, whose wife was killed in the crash, was awarded $74,483,000 on the same basis. In addition, all seven families, and the airline itself, were granted treble damages, together with pre-judgment interest. One source projects the total to reach $6 billion.

At 104 pages, the length and detail of Judge Kennedy's opinion dramatically describing the deaths of the falling passengers, the long-term impact of their loved ones' horrific deaths on the victims' spouses, children, grandchildren, parents, siblings, and extended families, culminating in many instances in physiological disorders, drug and alcohol dependency, and even several suicides precludes the DWLR from publishing the Court's Findings of Facts and Conclusions of Law. But the document makes dramatic and informative reading on various legal topics, including aviation law, diplomatic law, terrorism, tort law, and damages. The official citation is Pugh, et al. v. the Social People's Libyan Jamahiriya, C.A. No. 02-0206 (Jan. 23, 2008), the full text of which may be reviewed and downloaded in PDF format from the U.S. District Court's web site at https://ecf.dcd.uscourts.gov.

Published on January 31, 2008 in the DWLR.