WTC Trial Jury: No Verdict Yet

NU Online News Service, April 23, 4:14 p.m.EDT?The Manhattan federal court jury hearing the insurancedispute case that pits World Trade Center leaseholder LarrySilverstein against 13 of his insurers wrapped up its first week ofdeliberations without reaching a verdict.[@@]

With the court in recess today, deliberations are set to resumeMonday at 9:30 a.m.

The jury must decide which insurance form controlled thecoverage when terrorists destroyed the World Trade Center?aTravelers form or a Willis' "Wilprop" form. Insurers contend theysigned their binders on the basis of Wilprop, which would limit theWTC claim to one event worth $3.5 billion.

Mr. Silverstein, argues that prior to Sept. 11, 2001, thegoverning form was changed to the Travelers form, which leaves openthe possibility that the WTC terrorist attack constitutes twocovered events worth some $7 billion.

The following are the highlights from the first week of jurydeliberations:

? On Thursday, Judge Michael Mukasey said in response to thejurors' inquiry that insurers could be bound by a policyform?Willis Group's "Wilprop" form in this case?even if they didn'thave a copy of the form. This instruction by the judge may helpsome Lloyd's of London underwriters, because some of them hadsigned their binders without actually having read the Wilprop form,a form which defines the WTC terrorist attack as only one insuredevent.

"Does this mean that an insurer can agree to a form that existsand is available for review even if the form has not been received?The answer is yes," the judge said yesterday.

? In one set of notes sent out by the jury, the jurors asked forclarifications on facts concerning Lloyd's of London underwriters.In these notes, the jurors asked if either Munich Re or Swiss ReInternational constitutes part of Lloyd's.

"Is Munich Re part of the Lloyd's syndicates? Is Swiss ReInternational part of the Lloyd's syndicates?" the jury asked inits notes. The judge commented after getting the notes that "theanswers to the questions?the specific requests about whether peopleare or are not part of things?I think are fairly easy." The juryalso requested a second look at testimony concerning severalLloyd's syndicates.

? The jury also sent a note asking to see summations from bothsides in their entirety, but the judge denied the request,explaining it would be difficult for jurors to review the entiresummations, which are hundreds of pages long.

"Summations took two days. It is inconceivable that the jurycould review those summations in their entirety in the jury room,"Judge Mukasey said. He said there is no readily available way forjurors to find the parts that they may want, and "that leaves tochance what they might find and what they might not find."

? Earlier, in a note sent out on Monday, the jury asked thejudge about an e-mail sent from Willis, Mr. Silverstein's brokerfor the WTC insurance placement, to an underwriter at SwissReinsurance, the carrier with the largest insured interest indispute.

The e-mail in question, sent in July 2001, had an attachmentcontaining a form from Travelers Property Casualty?a form whichwould help Mr. Silverstein's claim that the WTC attack constitutestwo reimbursable events.

The jurors heard testimony that a Swiss Re underwriter hadreceived this e-mail (which also had other attachments), but thatthe underwriter had not responded to it.

In the note, the jury asked, "Does just getting the form andremaining silent constitute an agreement to the form?" The juryexplained in its note that it couldn't reach consensus on whetherthe Swiss Re underwriter, by not responding to the e-mail, couldhave agreed to a switch from Wilprop to the Travelers form. And thejury requested that Judge Mukasey clarify his instruction on legalrequirements for finding an agreement to change forms.

In response, the judge explained to jurors that silence doesn'tconstitute a new agreement and that the earlier agreement continuesto govern. But he also said there could be exceptionalcircumstances, such as when silence could mislead the party thatasked to switch forms.