Worley v. Islamic Republic of Iran, Civil Action No. 12–2069 RCL

• Decision Date: 08 December 2014
• Docket Number: Civil Action No. 12–2069 RCL
• Citation: 75 F.Supp.3d 311
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Columbia
• Parties: Nancy Worley, et al., Plaintiffs, v. Islamic Republic of Iran, et al., Defendants.

75 F.Supp.3d 311

Nancy Worley, et al., Plaintiffs

v.Islamic Republic of Iran, et al., Defendants.

Civil Action No. 12–2069 RCL

United States District Court, District of Columbia.

Signed December 8, 2014

Molly Patricia Hoffman, Thomas Fortune Fay, William Coleman Dowden, III, Caragh Glenn Fay, Fay Kaplan Law, P.A., Washington, DC, for Plaintiffs.

MEMORANDUM OPINION

ROYCE C. LAMBERTH, United States District Judge

This is one of many cases to have come before this Court arising out of the October 1983 bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut, Lebanon. Plaintiffs—servicemen, relatives of servicemen, and estates representing deceased members of these groups—seek to recover damages for injuries sustained in the attack and its aftermath from defendants the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Iranian Ministry of Information and Security (“MOIS”).

Pending before the Court are plaintiffs' motion for default judgment on liability and their motions to appoint special masters. For the reasons that follow, the Court concludes that defendants are liable to plaintiffs for injuries arising out of the Beirut barracks bombing. Therefore, plaintiffs' motion for default judgment on liability is DENIED IN PART as to plaintiffs Ollie James Edwards and Jeff Dadich and GRANTED IN PART as to all other plaintiffs. The Court also concludes that Alan Balaran shall be appointed special master of the Court for consideration of the measure of damages appropriate for each plaintiff and for completion of such other duties as are specified in the Court's Order accompanying this Memorandum Opinion and also issued this date. Plaintiffs' motion to appoint Mr. Balaran is GRANTED . Plaintiffs' other motions to appoint special masters are DENIED .

I. PROCEDURAL HISTORY

Plaintiffs filed suit on December 28, 2012. Compl., ECF No. 1. Both jurisdiction and liability are premised on section 1605A of the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (“FSIA”). 28 U.S.C. § 1605A. That section, often referred to as the state-sponsored terrorism exception to foreign sovereign immunity, furnishes a private right of action to victims of state-sponsored terrorism who meet the statute's strict requirements.

Defendants were served with process on July 31, 2013, notifying them of the pendency of this litigation. ECF No. 17. Defendants did not appear or respond in any way. They have not done so to this day. The Clerk of the Court, upon an affidavit by plaintiffs in support thereof, entered default against defendants on May 23, 2014. ECF Nos. 20, 21. Plaintiffs have since moved for a default judgment against defendants. Pl.'s Renewed Mot. for Default J. on Liability, ECF No. 27. They have also moved for appointment of three special masters: Larry Searle Lapidis, Alan Balaran, and Ronald Hedges. Pl.'s Mot. to Appoint Special Master, ECF Nos. 23–27.

II. FINDINGS OF FACT

Before determining whether defendants should have a default judgment entered against them, the Court must consider evidence and make findings of fact with respect to plaintiffs' allegations. This is because section 1608(e) of the FSIA requires that no default judgment shall be entered against a foreign state or its political subdivision except upon “evidence satisfactory to the court.” 28 U.S.C. § 1608(e). The Court, therefore, may not “simply accept a complaint's unsupported allegations as true.” Rimkus v. Islamic Republic of Iran, 750 F.Supp.2d 163, 171 (D.D.C.2010). Courts may rely upon uncontroverted factual allegations that are supported by affidavits. Id. Also, courts may take judicial notice of prior related proceedings in cases before the same court. Id. Before the Court sets out its findings of fact, the basis for accepting this latter form of evidence warrants greater elaboration.

A. Judicial Notice of Prior, Related FSIA Cases

A court may “take judicial notice of, and give effect to, its own records in another but interrelated proceeding.” Opati v. Republic of Sudan, 60 F.Supp.3d 68, 73, Civil Action No. 121224(JDB), 2014 WL 3687125, at *2 (D.D.C. July 25, 2014) (quoting Booth v. Fletcher, 101 F.2d 676, 679 n. 2 (D.C.Cir.1938) ). This is in keeping with Federal Rule of Evidence 201(b), which allows a court to “judicially notice a fact that is not subject to reasonable dispute because it ... can be accurately and readily determined from sources whose accuracy cannot reasonably be questioned.” Fed.R.Evid. 201(b). In light of this authority and the numerous FSIA cases in recent years giving rise to nearly identical factual and legal issues, this Court and others in this District have frequently taken judicial notice of earlier, related cases arising under the state sponsored terrorism exception to foreign sovereign immunity. See, e.g., Fain v. Islamic Republic of Iran, 856 F.Supp.2d 109, 115 (D.D.C.2012) (citing cases).

The Court may not, however, simply adopt previous factual findings without scrutiny. This is because factual findings “represent merely a court's probabilistic determination as to what happened, rather than a first-hand account of the actual events.” Id. at 116. As such, courts have concluded that findings of fact are generally considered hearsay, not subject to an enumerated exception to the prohibition on hearsay evidence in the federal rules. Rimkus, 750 F.Supp.2d at 172. This does not mean, however, that courts in later, related FSIA proceedings are given the “onerous burden of re-litigating key facts in related cases arising out of the same terrorist attack.” Id. Instead, courts hearing related FSIA cases may “rely upon the evidence presented in earlier litigation—without necessitating the formality of having that evidence reproduced—to reach their own, independent findings of fact in the cases before them.” Id. As stated above, the records of this Court in related proceedings are not subject to reasonable dispute. See Opati, 60 F.Supp.3d at 73–74, 2014 WL 3687125, at *2. Thus, the type and substance of evidence previously presented to this Court in prior proceedings may be judicially noticed in the process of reaching findings of fact in this case.

In Peterson v. Islamic Republic of Iran, 264 F.Supp.2d 46 (D.D.C.2003), this Court presided over a two day bench trial of claims arising out of the Beirut barracks bombing. Id. at 48. The Court “reviewed the extensive evidence presented during that trial by both lay and expert witnesses” regarding the bombing and defendants' actions relating to it. Id. The Court will take judicial notice of that evidence in making its findings of fact in this case.

B. The United States Presence in Beirut

The 24th Marine Amphibious Unit (“the 24th MAU”) of the United States Marines arrived in Beirut in 1983 as part of a multinational peacekeeping force comprised of American, British, French, and Italian soldiers. Id. at 49. Their presence was in response to an ongoing civil war in Lebanon, one that would kill approximately twenty thousand Lebanese before its conclusion. Id. Col. Timothy Geraghty, commander of the 24th MAU, testified before the Court in Peterson regarding their mission:

[E]ssentially what it was, it was primarily a peacekeeping mission and it was to show [our] presence, and when I say ours, and this is throughout all the forces, is that we were out showing a presence, [primarily] to provide stability to the area. And I might add that there's no doubt in just about anyone involved at the time, we saved a lot of lives by our presence there for awhile. And that was part of, I might add, in my judgment, the success of that, our presence mission there, and [that] it was working is the primary reason why we were targeted ....

The rules—these were geared primarily again with the peacekeeping mission [in mind] and the sensitivities of killing or maiming someone accidentally. That could be a tinderbox. That could start a whole chain of events.

Id. at 50 (alterations in original).

The “rules” referred to in Col. Geraghty's testimony, the rules of engagement applicable to the 24th MAU, “made clear that the servicemen possessed neither combatant nor police powers.” See id. at 49 (finding that the “servicemen were ordered not to carry weapons with live rounds in their chambers, and were not authorized to chamber the rounds in their weapons unless (1) they were directly ordered to do so by a commissioned officer or (2) they found themselves in a situation requiring the immediate use of deadly force in self-defense”). In light of this evidence, the Court finds, just as it did in Peterson, “that on October 23, 1983, the members of the 24th MAU, and the service members supporting the unit, were clearly non-combatants operating under peacetime rules of engagement.” Id. at 50.

C. The Bombing

On the morning of October 23, 1983, an Iranian national named Ismalal Ascari crashed a truck containing a large explosive device through wire and sandbag barriers and into the center of the 24th MAU's barracks. Id. at 56. The truck's payload detonated with a force between 15,000 and 21,000 pounds of TNT, destroying the four story barracks building and leaving a crater over eight feet deep. Id. servicemen died in the blast. Id. at 58. Many others were wounded

. Id.

The attack resulted from a plan hatched by a group including the leader of the Lebanese headquarters of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, an elite Iranian security and military force, and leaders of Hezbollah, a radical organization dedicated to the perpetration of “terrorist activities in furtherance of the transformation of Lebanon into an Islamic theocracy modeled after Iran.” Id. at 51, 54 n. 14, 55–56. The truck used to carry out the attack was “disguised so that it would resemble a water delivery truck that routinely arrived at the Beirut International Airport, which was located near the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut.”Id. at 56. Members of Hezbollah “ambushed the real water delivery truck before it arrived at the barracks,” allowing the bomb carrying truck to carry on its mission without raising suspicion until it was too...