Dammarell v. Islamic Republic of Iran

• Decision Date: 14 December 2005
• Docket Number: No. CIV.A.01-2224 JDB.,CIV.A.01-2224 JDB.
• Citation: 404 F.Supp.2d 261
• Parties: Anne DAMMARELL, et al., Plaintiffs, v. ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF IRAN, et al., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Columbia

404 F.Supp.2d 261

Anne DAMMARELL, et al., Plaintiffs, v. ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF IRAN, et al., Defendants.

No. CIV.A.01-2224 JDB.

United States District Court, District of Columbia.

December 14, 2005.

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Stuart Henry Newberger, Michael Lee Martinez, Monica Glynn Parham, Crowell & Moring LLP, Washington, DC, for Plaintiffs.

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 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-deguerre Islamic Jihad" and "operat[ing] 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 commonly 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. Vol. II at 20-21.

The bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Beirut in April 1983 represented a turning point with respect to Iran-sponsored terrorism conducted in Lebanon by Hizbollah. As Ambassador Oakley testified:

I think it was a seminal event in anti-U.S. terrorism[,] and Lebanon seems to be the easiest place for the Iranians to operate. As I've said before, they had several purposes, one was to drive the United States out of Lebanon, its military forces and also ... cultural influence. Same thing is true of the French who were supporting universities there and also had military forces there as part of the Multinational Force. The Iranians wanted to drive us out so they could put in an Iranian Shila revolutionary state. The second thing they wanted to do is to punish the United States for its support of Iraq, against Iran in the Iraq/Iran war, which at that stage was at its peak and the Iranians were at the losing end of it at that stage so they wanted to make it very, very clear they were going after us. The third thing they wanted to do was — all of these were helped by blowing up our embassy, was to show the power which Iran and its supporters could generate. And here you have something that's not quite as powerful, but almost as the removal of the Shah as supported by the United States and indirectly by Israel. And finally they wanted to cement their relationship within the entire Middle East by showing what they could do against us, which made them a force throughout the [Muslim] world, if you will.... So it serve[d] several different purposes for the government of Iran and did so with a degree of success. [Although] we stood our ground, we weren't driven out of Lebanon at this stage. It was only later on when they blew up the [Marine] barracks, which was a huge shock to the American people that finally public and political pressure convinced the Reagan administration they should pull the U.S. forces out of Lebanon.

Ex. 19 (Oakley Dep. Tr.) at 50-52.

Iran provided Hizbollah with military arms, training, and other supplies, and issued propaganda to encourage Lebanese Shi`ites to join the organization. Ex. 34(5) at 2; see also Ex. 34(1) at 2 (CIA analysis finding that Iran provided "training and military support to the radical Shi`a groups based in the Bekka Valley"). In fact, soldiers from Iran's elite military unit, the Revolutionary Guard, set up headquarters in Lebanon's Bekka Valley to train Hizbollah recruits. Oakley Dep. Ex. 9 (also at Ex. 28); Ex. 10 (also Ex. 29) at 304; Ex. 34(5) at 2. By early 1985, the United States had "fresh and convincing evidence that radical elements highly placed within ... the government of Iran [were] giving operational policy advice to terrorists in Lebanon, specifically terrorists operating under the name `Islamic Jihad' or Hizbollah." Ex. 27 at 1; (also at Oakley Depo. Ex. 8).

Iran also provided Hizbollah with financial support. Indeed, while support of Hizbollah was not...