## Facts

- Terrorists detonated a large vehicle bomb on February 26, 1993, in the public parking garage beneath the World Trade Center, causing deaths, personal injuries, and extensive property and business losses.
- The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey owned and operated the World Trade Center complex, including the underground garage and related access areas.
- Injured individuals and businesses sued the Port Authority for negligence, alleging inadequate security and failure to take reasonable precautions that could have prevented the bomb from being placed in the garage or reduced the harm.
- The Port Authority argued the attack was unforeseeable and that its security-related decisions were discretionary governmental acts protected by governmental immunity.

## Issues

1. Whether the Port Authority’s challenged conduct in operating the World Trade Center complex and garage was proprietary (like a private landowner) or governmental (discretionary security policy), for purposes of tort liability.
2. Whether governmental immunity barred negligence claims alleging inadequate security against criminal and terrorist acts.
3. Whether the terrorist bombing could be treated as a reasonably foreseeable risk such that the Port Authority’s alleged negligence could be found a proximate cause of plaintiffs’ injuries.
4. Whether apportioning fault between the Port Authority and the terrorists was permissible under New York comparative-fault and proximate-cause rules.

## Decision

- The Court of Appeals largely upheld the plaintiffs’ verdict and rejected dismissal based on governmental immunity.
- The court held that, for much of the conduct at issue, the Port Authority acted in a proprietary capacity as owner/operator of a commercial office complex and public parking garage, making ordinary premises-liability standards applicable.
- The court recognized that some high-level security choices may be governmental, but concluded the core allegations concerned operation and maintenance of commercial property rather than protected discretionary policy-making.
- The court held that foreseeability and proximate cause were properly left to the jury given evidence of prior warnings and vulnerability assessments identifying risks consistent with a vehicle-bomb attack.
- The court allowed the jury’s allocation of fault between the Port Authority and the terrorists to stand, concluding intentional criminal conduct did not automatically break the causal chain where the duty included guarding against foreseeable criminal acts.

## Legal Principles

- A public entity acting in a proprietary capacity as a landowner is generally subject to the same negligence and premises-liability rules as a private landowner.
- Governmental immunity protects discretionary governmental functions involving reasoned policy choices, but it does not categorically immunize conduct merely because it relates to security.
- Landowners may have a duty to take reasonable precautions against foreseeable third-party criminal acts when the risk is reasonably foreseeable based on the nature of the premises, prior incidents, warnings, or risk assessments.
- Proximate cause may include both a defendant’s negligent omissions and a third party’s intentional wrongdoing when the foreseeable risk that made the omission negligent included criminal conduct.
- Comparative fault permits allocation of responsibility between negligent actors and intentional tortfeasors when supported by the evidence and consistent with the scope of the duty.

## Conclusion

The court held that the Port Authority could be treated as a commercial landowner for much of the alleged security negligence at the World Trade Center and therefore was not broadly shielded by governmental immunity; the foreseeability of the terrorist car-bomb risk and resulting proximate cause were properly resolved by the jury, and the verdict and fault allocation were largely sustained.


In re World Trade Ctr. Bombing Litig., 17 N.Y.3d 428, 957 N.E.2d 733 (N.Y. 2011)