How did I miss this?

Andy McCarthy, in the Corner, noted a story that I'd missed. And it is appalling.

According to the NY Times, the "Port Authority of New York and New Jersey is asking a court to set aside a jury verdict finding the authority negligent in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center." Hmm. I had thought that Ramzi Yousef, assisted by Abdul Rahman Yasin (from that peaceful, non-threat to the US, non-terrorism supporting fantasyland Iraq), had been responsible for that bombing. But maybe the Port Authority had been a little bit negligent. Maybe they should have been checking any vans entering the parking garage, or looking for Middle-eastern men driving vans in (I'm sure that the ACLU would have approved.) So maybe, possibly, a jury could look at the whole situation and think that, oh, .01-.02% of the responsibility fell on the Port Authority.

No. The jury found the Port Authority 68% responsible.

That is not a misprint. That is not a typo. 68%. 68%!

A jury of Americans found that more than 2/3 of the responsibility for that bombing went, not to the people who plotted, planned, made the bomb and set it off, but to the regulatory authority in charge of the building for not knowing that the bomb was in that van. Absolutely unbelievable.

And I don't want to hammer lawyers, as a general rule. There are many good and great people out there doing important work. But when I see something like this, it just boggles my mind that someone was willing to go out and play lawsuit lottery with this.


Back in the mid-80s, there was a great Bloom County strip about this phenomenon.



As is so often the case, to quote Homer Simpson, "it's funny because it's true." But this decision is far beyond funny...