WTC Jury Deliberates, Asks For Clarifications

By Michael Ha

NU Online News Service, Nov. 17, 4:20 p.m. EST? The federal jury in the World Trade Center insurance coverage dispute trial ended deliberations without reaching a verdict today. The panel will not meet tomorrow.[@@]

During discussions at U.S. District Court in Manhattan, the jury of 10 women and two men have sent out a number of notes asking for exhibits. Today, in their second day of deliberations, they asked for a clarification of the judge's instructions.

The trial is the second to pit the World Trade Center leaseholder Larry Silverstein against a group of his insurers. There are nine carriers involved in the latest proceedings.

The jury must decide on the claim by Mr. Silverstein that his coverage for the 9/11 terrorist attack that destroyed his property requires two-event compensation. The insurers, on the other hand, say that only one insured event was involved.

Collectively, these nine insurers in the current phase provided $1.132 billion of the $3.55 billion in total per-occurrence WTC property coverage, and the maximum dollar amount Mr. Silverstein can obtain from these nine insurers is $2.264 billion?if the jury finds all nine insurers are liable for two insured occurrences.

So far in its deliberations, the jury has sent out notes asking for an index of exhibits and a technical question involving coverage. Today, the jury asked for a clarification of Manhattan Federal Judge Michael Mukasey's charge yesterday regarding the insurance contract parties' "communication of intent."

The jury wanted a clarification of the judge's charge that an uncommunicated intent of one party involved in contract transactions cannot change the meaning of what actually has been communicated in the transaction.

From its note, the jury appeared to demand more instructions on how to treat some of the witness testimony which explicitly mentions the intent and understanding of one party, which was not clearly communicated in transactions.

The judge told the jury he was trying to say in his charge that "if one party has an intent that only that party knows about, that cannot change the meaning of what it has communicated to another party."

However, he said, "I did permit some witnesses to testify about their own understandings about certain things even though there was no direct evidence that they communicated those understandings to another party." The judge explained such testimony was received "only to help explain the witness's own actions and statements."

He said that the jury can consider one party's uncommunicated understanding as "evidence of a joint understanding?if you find from other evidence that the other party had the same understanding."

The nine insurers opposing the Silverstein parties in the current trial are Allianz, Gulf, Industrial Risk Insurance (IRI), Royal Specialty, TIG, Tokio Marine, Travelers, Twin City, and Zurich.

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WTC Jury Deliberates, Asks For Clarifications

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