Blaming Saudis for 9-11

Photo: The Canadian Press

For years, family members of those killed on Sept. 11 and insurance companies tried unsuccessfully through the courts to hold Saudi Arabia or businesses and organizations there responsible for the terrorist attacks. Now that Congress has cleared the way, they're making a fresh effort.

In the next year, the Manhattan federal courts will make rulings signalling to thousands of family members of those killed and injured first responders whether passage of the 2016 Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act was largely a symbolic exercise or a catalyst to getting them to trial.

Timothy Litzenburg, a Richmond, Virginia, lawyer, said his firm raced to court hours after Congress overrode former President Barack Obama's veto in late September, hoping to get an early start on winning damages for litigants.

"We thought maybe we could do the first trial," he said. But now that the lawsuits have been consolidated before a New York federal court, Litzenburg predicts it could be a decade before there is a resolution for over a dozen lawsuits filed against the kingdom.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Sarah Netburn tried to put the litigation on a faster track Thursday, telling dozens of lawyers at a Manhattan conference that she believes some of the lawsuits can be combined because they make identical or similar claims. She noted the latest lawsuit had been filed just hours earlier.

James Kreindler, a plaintiffs' lawyer in one new lawsuit, told her he expects the lawsuits may be combined into two legal actions, perhaps within a month.