Hellerstein Ensures "Safe" Wrongful Death Trial for June 2011

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US Judge Sets Summer Trial Schedule In Sept 11 Death Suit

By David Benoit, Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES

NEW YORK -(Dow Jones)- A federal trial will be held in the summer over the death of Mark Bavis on Sept. 11, 2001, a judge ordered Wednesday, setting a consolidated timeline in the wrongful-death suit Bavis's family brought.

U.S. District Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein ordered the civil trial involving Bavis to proceed on a consolidated schedule, separate from other cases involving the same defendants, which include among others United Airlines, Boeing Co. (BA) and the government's Transportation Security Administration.

Laying out ground rules and schedules for the parties to follow, Hellerstein said he would like to start the first civil trial about the terrorist attack on June 13 and have it finish around July 22.

For instance, Hellerstein said it would be a "timed trial" with each side getting a definitive clocked time for the trial. He asked that the sides try to be "disciplined" in who is actually included as defendants and witnesses, and urged that the group to try to keep extras to a minimum.

"Let's go ahead and try this case like old fashioned lawyers do," Hellerstein said. "I don't have hair, you don't have hair...Let's act our age."

He also ordered both sides to create a "narrative" of the events of Sept. 11 to present to the jury as a way of avoiding expert testimony by historians. He suggested using the government's official 9/11 report as a basis for the narrative, which he admitted the case has had trouble laying out.

Bavis, of Newton, Mass., and who worked for the National Hockey League's Los Angeles Kings, was aboard United Air Flight 175 when it crashed into the World Trade Center.

The courtroom in Manhattan, only blocks from the World Trade Center, was again packed with lawyers representing all the possible defendants and claimants.

The vast majority of personal injury cases against the airlines and other parties have been settled, but some were attempting to have the Bavis matter consolidated with separate cases involving the same defendants brought by property owners in the World Trade area.

Hellerstein said that could "make a difficult case impossible" and ordered the case tried on its own.

But the property claimants remained very interested in the case, given they will be facing the same defendants.

-By David Benoit, Dow Jones Newswires; 212-227-2017; david.benoit@dowjones.com

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