Dammarell v. Islamic Republic of Iran

404 F. Supp. 2d 261, 2005 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 32590, 2005 WL 3418304
District Court, District of Columbia·Decided December 14, 2005·No. CIV.A.01-2224 JDB·Published·Cited by 47 cases

Opinion

MEMORANDUM OPINION (REVISED FINDINGS & CONCLUSIONS)

BATES, District Judge.

This case has been in the vanguard of mass-tort lawsuits brought by victims of terrorism against foreign states, as permitted by a 1996 amendment to the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (“FSIA”) that revoked jurisdictional protection for terrorist-sponsoring governments. During the more than four years that have passed since the eighty-three plaintiffs in this action first filed suit against the Islamic Republic of Iran (“Iran”) and its Ministry of Intelligence and Security (“MOIS”) for their involvement in the 1983 bombing of the United States Embassy in Beirut, Lebanon, several court rulings have altered the relevant legal landscape. Two decisions by the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit —Cicippio-Puleo v. Islamic Republic of Iran, 353 F.3d 1024 (D.C.Cir.2004), and Acree v. Republic of Iraq, 370 F.3d 41 (D.C.Cir.2004) — presented potential ramifications for the conclusions of law (and corresponding damage awards) that this Court issued on September 8, 2003, with respect to the claims of twenty-nine of the plaintiffs (“the Phase I litigants”). 1 See Dammarell v. Islamic Republic of Iran, 281 F.Supp.2d 105 (D.D.C.2003) (hereinafter “Dammarell *271 I”). Consistent with the D.C. Circuit’s rulings, this Court subsequently affirmed that plaintiffs could allege cognizable claims against the defendants based on the FSIA’s terrorism exceptions to sovereign immunity, but determined that plaintiffs needed to amend their complaint to plead specific causes of action under the common law or statutes of their respective home states. 2 See Dammarell v. Islamic Republic of Iran, 370 F.Supp.2d 218, 220-21 (D.D.C.2005) (opinion on plaintiffs’ motion for clarification and reconsideration of the Court’s March 29, 2005, order) (hereinafter “Dammarell III”). The Court granted plaintiffs leave to file an amended complaint and required them to submit a supplemental brief addressing the proper choice-of-law determination for each individual or estate. Id. All of that has happened, and the Court now renders revised findings of fact and conclusions of law, enters judgment for the Phase I litigants, and awards compensatory damages totaling $126,061,657.

BACKGROUND

On April 18, 1983, at approximately 1:05 p.m., an unidentified driver crashed a vehicle laden with hundreds of pounds of explosives into the main entrance of the United States Embassy in Beirut. See generally Exs. 2-10; Ex. 11. Upon crashing into the Embassy, the vehicle exploded with a force so powerful that seven floors in the center section of the crescent-shaped building collapsed, or “pancaked.” See Ex. 17 at 3-4. Portions of the Embassy, including the Marine security guard post, the cafeteria, the United States Information Service library, the personnel section, and the consular section, were completely destroyed by the blast. Other parts of the building were severely damaged. See Tr. Vol. I at 131, 133; see also Ex. 16 at 6-17; see generally Exs. 2—11. 3 As a result of the blast, sixty-three people, including seventeen U.S. citizens, were killed. Over one hundred others were injured. See, e.g., Tr. Vol. I at 117, 135; see also Exs. 2-11.

The bombing was the first large-scale attack against a U.S. Embassy anywhere in the world. See Ex. 19 (Oakley Dep. Tr.) at 22; see also Tr. Vol. I at 121-22; Ex. 35 at 13. At the time, it was not immediately clear who was responsible for the bombing. See, e.g., Tr. Vol. II at 27-28; Tr. Vol. I at 121. But by 1984, the U.S. State Department, in its annual publication “Patterns of Global Terrorism: 1983,” noted that “radical Lebanese Shi'a using the nom-de-guerre Islamic Jihad” and “operating] with Iranian support and encouragement” were “responsible for the suicide attack[s] against the U.S. Embassy.” See Ex. 20 at 11 (also at Oakley Dep. Ex. 1); Ex. 22 (discussing Islamic Jihad terrorist activities, including, inter alia, the 1983 Beirut Embassy bombing, as “part of a major terrorist campaign aimed at the elimination of U.S. and western influence in Lebanon”); Oakley Dep. Tr. at 23-25. The terrorist group Islamic Jihad has been known by various names, including Right Against Wrong, the Revolutionary Justice Organization, and, perhaps most common *272 ly, Hizbollah. 4 See Ex. 19 (Oakley Depo. Tr.) at 46; see also Oakley Dep. Ex. 10 (also at Ex. 29) at 304. In connection with the evidentiary hearing in this matter, Ambassador Robert Oakley — who, as the coordinator of the State Department’s counterterrorism efforts, was tasked with assessing who was behind the 1983 Beirut Embassy bombing, see Ex. 19 (Oakley Dep. Tr.) at 9 — testified that it ultimately became “very clear that Islamic Jihad [Hizbollah] was behind the bombing in 1983.” Id. at 21. Ambassador Oakley further expressed “confiden[ce] that the government of Iran was involved directly in the Hisballah organization, which was created, armed, trained, protected, provided technical assistance by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards.” Id. at 21.

Among other things, the complexity of the attack upon the U.S. Embassy in Beirut evidenced Iran’s central role in the attack. Dr. Patrick Clawson, Deputy Director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, see Tr. Vol. II at 3, and an expert in Iranian politics, the Iranian economy, and Iranian sponsorship of terrorism, testified:

[T]here’s no question that Iran was responsible for the selection of the target, provided much of the information for how to carry out the bombing, the expertise for how to build the bomb, the political direction that said that this was an important target to bomb, provided financial support for the bombers. It has the Iranians’ fingerprints all over it....
[T]his was quite a sophisticated and large bomb against a well-guarded target. And at the time, the people from the Shi'a community who claimed responsibility for this were just getting into the business of having a militia and having — and engaging in some kinds of bombings. They hadn’t done a whole lot. They didn’t have established expertise; they didn’t have a group of people locally whom they could draw upon to do this.
And furthermore, at this time they were so dependant upon financial support from Iran, they had no independent means of financial support, and furthermore, they were so dependant upon political guidance from Iran, Iran was quite directly ordering what targets to do, what not to do.

Tr. Yol. II at 20-21.

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Dammarell v. Islamic Republic of Iran, 404 F. Supp. 2d 261, 2005 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 32590, 2005 WL 3418304 (D.D.C. 2005).

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