By Debra Bruno
July 16, 2018
大多数诉讼靠谱的滚球平台都有一定程度的狂妄自大. It’s the confidence that allows them to be able to tell a story to a judge or jury, to challenge opponents, 并且觉得他们的客户应该得到, quite literally, their day in court.
因此，斯图尔特•纽伯格(Stuart Newberger)的狂妄也就不足为奇了. 然而，在他的情况下，这是值得的. 64岁的纽伯格就是克罗威尔 & Moring LLP partner who won some $40 million for former Beirut hostage Terry Anderson and his family, who fought for and initially won $6 billion for the families of seven Americans killed in a 1989 airplane bombing (although that astronomical number was later reduced), and who won victories in a number of other cases involving victims of terrorism who sought compensation for their losses.
It’s not his only work, but these are the courtroom dramas that make headlines. 肯尼斯·范伯格(Kenneth Feinberg)最为人所知的是他为美国政府所做的工作.S. Department of Justice administering funds to the victims of the September 11 attacks, explains that in a small niche of lawyers who represent victims of terrorism, just two or three have been “pivotal” in finding an avenue for victims of terrorism to sue those responsible for their acts. 纽伯格就是其中之一，他说.
After an amendment to the 1976 Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA) passed in 1996, victims were allowed to sue, in U.S. 法院，美国指定的国家.S. 作为支持恐怖主义的国家. Then, in 2016, the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act allowed victims to sue countries that didn’t fall on the state-sponsored list. 该法案设立了司法部的受害者赔偿基金, which allowed those with final judgments to be compensated with funds taken from foreign firms that had pled guilty.
So how does a lawyer begin more than 20 years of representing victims of terror? 对纽伯格来说，这是一个建立在声誉和决心上的故事.
纽伯格选择法律部分是因为, as his grandmother told him, “我是个大嘴巴，可以当靠谱的滚球平台,” he says with a chuckle. 他还喜欢法律类电视节目，比如《靠谱的足球滚球平台》, as well as the actor Gregory Peck who played attorney Atticus Finch in the film To Kill a Mockingbird.
在乔治城大学法学院学习期间，他为D.C. Public Defender Service, and then as a law clerk for the Justice Department’s Civil Division, which was, Newberger says, “这是除了阅读法律书籍之外获得教育的好方法.”
他在著名法官哈罗德. Greene of the U.S. 哥伦比亚特区地方法院. 纽伯格说，在格林当职员是一段“奇妙的经历”,” not only because of Greene’s personal history of escaping Nazi Germany and building a new life in America, 但也因为法官的案子很忙, which gave Newberger a range of experiences he could have had nowhere else.
纽伯格后来成为美国联邦调查局的助理.S. attorney, working on national security-related trial and appellate work. 就在那时，他接到了特里·安德森的电话, the Associated Press journalist who was taken hostage in Lebanon in 1985 by an Iran-supported group and held for nearly seven years. Newberger initially represented Anderson pro bono in a Freedom of Information Act case, 1996年国会修订了FSIA, 他在一场针对伊朗的诉讼中代表安德森并胜诉.
That success led to other work from victims who sought damages from Iran, Libya, and Sudan, 这让他想到了联合航空公司772航班的有趣案例, 1989年，一架飞机在尼日尔沙漠上空坠毁, 造成170名乘客和机组人员死亡, including seven Americans. 纽伯格首先代表道格·马修斯, 失事飞机的美国主人, but he eventually represented the families of the Americans killed in the mid-air suitcase bombing. “我花了10年时间研究那个案子，”他说.
It’s a fascinating history, 而是在泛美航空103航班的报道中丢失的那个, 被世人称为洛克比, a year earlier, 导致数百名美国人死亡.
Newberger’s gripping book, published just last year, 被遗忘的航班:恐怖主义, 外交与追求正义.
“I wrote to tell the story that nobody knew about,” Newberger says. “I also told it because I wanted to demonstrate to people who have been victims of terror that sometimes you can fight back, and sometimes you can heal, and sometimes you can get emotional closure — and we have the tools to do that.”
The book is a complex, multilayered narrative, first describing the successful efforts by a French team led by magistrate Jean-Louis Bruguiere to prove that Libya was responsible for the destruction of the plane, and then detailing Newberger’s work to prosecute Libya for damages.
审判的戏剧性，以及美国法院的裁决.S. District Judge Henry H. Kennedy, 是书中最引人注目的部分之一吗, 每个家庭都在谈论他们失去的亲人, and an expert details evidence that the passengers on the flight probably were not killed instantly, but suffered several minutes of terror as the plane disintegrated and roared toward the Earth. Kennedy awarded $100,在飞机被击落时，每秒钟的恐怖活动就有1万美元, Newberger writes. 因为飞机下降了180秒, 每个受害者都得到了1800万美元, plus additional funds in compensatory damages and additional judgments against the men who carried out the attack.
It was an award that was far bigger than the settlement for the 1988 Lockerbie flight, which had killed more than 250 Americans and came to roughly $8 million per family.
Ironically, that award became moot in 2008 when President George W. 布什说服国会通过了利比亚索赔解决法案, which, 作为修复与国家关系的一种方式, allowed for compensatory damages far less than what Kennedy had ordered. “The President of the United States cut a deal with Qaddafi before he left office, and this diplomatic deal took priority over” the case that Newberger had fought.
在这笔交易中，卡扎菲同意上交1美元.5 billion, which the U.S. government used to set up a fund to review the claims of the survivors and distribute the money.
“It took the president of the United States and Congress and the federal court system to turn around what I did,” Newberger says. But observers say that the enormous original judgment probably did bring Libya to the settlement table in the end.
Newberger acknowledges that the end result is that today victims of terrorism have an avenue to receive compensation.
即使有这么多的关注, the terrorism work is less than a third of Newberger’s overall load, 包括国际商事仲裁吗, investment treaty arbitration and non-terrorism-related FSIA work, he says.
That raises an interesting question: What case would Newberger like to be remembered for? 他说:“我认为最好的还在后头。. There’s a trial in July involving Pakistan, he says, that might get a few headlines. Stay tuned.
