A 9/11 Judge Sets a Timer for a Month

[alp227]

Source: The New York Times

For almost nine years, the family of Mark Bavis, a passenger on the second plane to hit the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, has been waiting for a trial in a wrongful-death lawsuit it filed against United Airlines and other defendants.

The family, determined to prove what it believes was negligence, has resisted attempts to settle. Theirs is the last wrongful-death action still pending of more than 90 filed after the attacks. Thousands of other families avoided court and received payments through a victims’ compensation fund.

But now, after this seemingly endless run-up, with a trial scheduled for later this year, the judge, Alvin K. Hellerstein of Federal District Court in Manhattan, has set a time limit. In a highly unusual move, Judge Hellerstein will restrict each side to the same number of hours — in one estimate, 50 to 60 — to present its case, and time the trial like a speed chess match.

“The time is going to be expressed not in days, but in minutes,” Judge Hellerstein has said in court. Each side’s clock will start ticking whenever its lawyer rises to question or cross-examine a witness, or to argue before the jury — “everything the party wishes to do from openings through summations,” he said.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/28/nyregion/at-911-trial-lawyers-will-watch-the-clock.html

[Angry Dragon]

1. Sounds pretty dumb.....

[Citizen Worker]

2. Post 9/11 American jurisprudence.

[Rex]

3. Is he somehow losing his marbles?