I don't know if this has been posted elsewhere but Saddam Hussein has been ordered by a court in New York to pay damages to a couple of families who were victims of Sept. 11. http://www.cnn.com/2003/LAW/05/07/attacks.suits.ap/ What I want to know from the BS community is an answer to this: "Isn't it a little worrisome that a court in our country can find Saddam at least partially responsible for 9-11, but our govenment cannot come up with enough proof to say the same?" What does this say about our court system, or our government?
Actually, this is very worrisome to the government. The court only had to use a very lax measure of proof, as there was no defense. If 2 people can get this much money from Iraq this easily, then the rest of the families can strip Iraq to the bone faster than piranha. This means nothing to fix the Iraqi infrastructure, and lots of upset Iraqis, and a bad time trying to control the nation. I don't thing the Federales will let it stand.
I thought that wrongful death suits were supposed to have a $250K cap on them.... Anyhow, this is a very bad decision just from the facts that even the judge admits are flimsy at best, though I hadn't thought about spejic's point. If two families can claim $52 million each from the accounts that "belong to the Iraqi people", multiply $52 million by 3,000 and you get... well, you get to bankruptcy pretty damn quick.
Outrageous. And $52 million? In Dutch we have a word for that... lijkenpikkers. It means you eat of dead people. Totally outrageous. How can a judge come to a decision like this?
Eat dead people? I didn't know Mike Tyson is Dutch. This sounds like some judge has a re-election campaign coming up soon.
In the article I read, the judge went out of his way to say how weak the evidence regarding Iraq was. Maybe one of the lawyers can chime in here...in a civil case, if one defendant doesn't put up a defense, can the plaintiff assert basically anything, with any tiny shred of validity, and get the judge to accept it? I mean, civil cases are a preponderance of the evidence. To me, it seems that if there was no defense put up, then a judge would have to rule that, yes, the hearsay of the Prague meeting is stronger evidence than the nothing that the defense presented.
the biggest thing that worries me is the fact of a lawsuit. when i was younger, and i'm only 26, i remember people used to die. that was it, they died... sometimes sad, tragic etc. now you can't even die without someone being responsible whether it be fast food co., tobacco, foreign gov'ts. etc. etc. that's the problem with this country is that we're getting to a point where we are being trained to think, something happened? who can we sue? how can we cash in? it's pathetic.
If you are sued, and you don't show up for court the court can issue whatever default judgment against you they feel is right. Failure to appear = default judgment. I assume no attorney stood up in this case and said, your honor I represent Saddam, and we would like to deny this case. Assuming the attorneys properly sued the defendant's, the ultimate question is whether that particular court can enforce its judgment against Saddam. I don't know how they will do it, but rest assured the attorney's involved in the case have thought about it in advance as it was likely Saddam wouldn't make an appearance in this case. I couldn't tell you what assets of Iraq, Saddam or whomever they could recover from. Its not like they judge can order a citizen of Iraq to pay 2 million dollars. The question is what can someone do if he doesn't pay the 2 million dollars. In the US there is contept issues, garnishment issues, property restrictions etc. Assuming Saddam has no residences in the US, won't be in the US any time soon and isn't a wage earner, it will be hard to get the judgment paid off. We will see what the attorney's try.
Bearing in mind that unless the US plans to steal money from Iraq, there is no chance of this lawsuit ever being paid, what exactly was the point of it? It seems to me that a lot of lawyers are getting paid a lot of money by somebody, but nobody else is going to gain anything. Sadly the only country known to have really provided training for the 9/11 terrorists is the United States. Maybe the US could sue itself.