Cantor Fitzgerald, the securities firm whose World Trade Center offices were destroyed on September 11, 2001, has been told by US District Judge Alvin Hellerstein that it cannot claim profits lost from deaths and injuries to its personnel as damages in its lawsuit against American Airlines.
Hellerstein said in a pretrial ruling that “under New York law, claims for damages associated with the death of an individual are considered wrongful-death causes of action,” the judge said. “Cantor Fitzgerald is not entitled to bring such a cause of action.”
American Airlines Flight 11 was the first of two aircraft to strike the twin towers. Some 658 of Cantor Fitzgerald’s employees based in New York were killed in the attack.
Cantor Fitzgerald sued the airline three years after the attack, claiming it failed to screen and detect the terrorists and allowed them to board and commandeer the plane. The firm is seeking more than $945 million in damages for the destruction of its offices, furnishings and technological infrastructure, and for business interruption. American said the business interruption damages arose from the death of the firm’s employees, which the judge agreed had been “substantially inflated” by losses flowing from those casualties.
“No one can deny the emotional and financial hurt suffered by Cantor Fitzgerald and the families of its officers and employees,” the judge said in his 21-page decision. Still, he said the firm “must eliminate the impermissible aspect of its damages claim.”
Hellerstein set a February 28 deadline for Cantor Fitzgerald to file its amended claims. The judge scheduled a March 7 conference to set a trial date.