## Facts

- Numerous wrongful-death and personal-injury actions arose from the September 11, 2001 hijackings and aircraft crashes.
- Plaintiffs were 96 claimants in 95 actions who chose litigation rather than the September 11 Victim Compensation Fund.
- Defendants were primarily airlines and aviation-related entities, including airport-security companies, accused of negligence in security and screening.
- The Air Transportation Safety and System Stabilization Act (ATSSSA) created an exclusive federal forum in the Southern District of New York for claims “resulting from or relating to” the attacks and limited defendants’ aggregate liability largely to available insurance coverage.
- ATSSSA also barred punitive damages and constrained certain state-law damage enhancements, while offering the Fund as a no-fault alternative requiring waiver of litigation.
- The court consolidated and actively managed the docket under a master calendar, employing coordinated discovery and a damages-focused approach to facilitate resolution.
- After settlements stalled, the court appointed a mediator, who helped resolve most remaining cases; by the time of the order, all but three cases had settled.

## Issues

1. Whether the court should accept and file the mediator’s report describing the mediation results and process in the consolidated September 11 wrongful-death and personal-injury litigation.
2. Whether, given near-complete settlement, the court should close the master calendar used to administer the consolidated docket.

## Decision

- The court accepted the mediator’s report and ordered it filed.
- The court recognized that the consolidated wrongful-death and personal-injury docket had been almost entirely resolved through mediation and settlements.
- The court closed the master calendar for the consolidated personal-injury and wrongful-death cases, with three cases remaining for further proceedings.

## Legal Principles

- Congress may establish an exclusive federal cause of action and exclusive jurisdiction in a single federal district for a mass-disaster event, while limiting liability and restricting categories of damages as part of a compensatory scheme.
- In complex, statutorily constrained mass-tort litigation, a district court may employ centralized case management, coordinated discovery, damages-focused proceedings, and court-appointed mediation to move cases toward consistent, efficient resolution.
- Court-supervised mediation may be used to resolve large sets of disaster-related claims where ordinary individualized trials would be impracticable and where parties must operate within statutory limits on remedies.

## Conclusion

The court memorialized the near-total settlement of the consolidated September 11 wrongful-death and personal-injury cases by accepting and filing the mediator’s report and closing the master calendar, leaving a small remainder to proceed separately.


In re September 11 Litigation, 600 F. Supp. 2d 549 (S.D.N.Y. 2009)