In re WORLD TRADE CENTER DISASTER SITE LITIGATION.
In re World Trade Center Lower Manhattan Disaster Site Litigation.
In re Combined World Trade Center and Lower Manhattan Disaster Site Litigation (straddler plaintiffs).
Kirk Arsenault and Steve Zablocki, Plaintiffs,
v.
Tully Construction Co., Inc.; Tully Industries Inc.; and Deutsche Bank, Defendants.
Steve Zablocki, Plaintiff,
v.
Tully Construction Co., Inc.; Tully Industries Inc.; and Deutsche Bank, Defendants.
Nos. 21 MC 100(AKH), 21 MC 102(AKH), 21 MC 103(AKH), 04 Civ. 5338(AKH), 06 Civ. 15494(AKH).
United States District Court, S.D. New York.
September 21, 2007.OPINION AND ORDER GRANTING AND DENYING MOTIONS TO STAY
ALVIN K. HELLERSTEIN, District Judge.
In the aftermath of the attacks on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, thousands of workers came to the World Trade Center site and nearby locations to participate, and to be engaged, in debris removal and other clean-up tasks. *557 Some of these workers claim to have suffered respiratory and other injuries, and have filed lawsuits against the City of New York, its contractors, building owners and others. The City of New York and certain contractors filed motions for judgment on the pleadings and for summary judgment based on claims of immunity from suit under state and federal law. On October 17, 2006, I denied their motions. See In re World Trade Ctr. Disaster Site Litig., 456 F.Supp.2d 520 (S.D.N.Y.2006).
Claiming a right of immediate appeal from my adverse ruling, the City and contractors filed a notice of appeal, and asserted that the filing of the notice of appeal ousted the Court's jurisdiction to conduct further pretrial proceedings. On January 8, 2007, I rejected their contention, holding that their notice of appeal was legally ineffective to divest the Court of its jurisdiction. See In re World Trade Ctr. Disaster Site Litig., 469 F.Supp.2d 134 (S.D.N.Y.2007). Defendants petitioned the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit for mandamus relief, and moved for a stay of trial and pretrial proceedings.[1] Defendants'"Motion Information Statement" (Form T-1080, last revised 11/01/2006) pertaining to their motion for a stay states the "complete relief sought" as follows:
Appellants ("Movants") respectfully request that [the Court of Appeals] enforce the divestment of jurisdiction in the District Court by immediately staying all further proceedings in the 21 MC 100(AKH) action pending resolution of Defendants' appeal.
On March 9, 2007, the Second Circuit accepted Defendants' appeal, granted Defendants' motion for a stay, dismissed the mandamus petition, and issued a one-page order providing in its entirety, as follows:
Appellants-petitioners [the City of New York et al.], through counsel, move for a writ of mandamus and a stay of the district court proceedings pending appeal. Appellees, through counsel, move to dismiss the appeal docketed under 06-5324-cv. Because it is at least arguable whether some or all of the assertions of immunity put forward by appellants-petitioners have merit, upon due consideration, it is hereby ORDERED that the motion for a stay of trial as well as pre-trial proceedings is GRANTED. See Mitchell v. Forsyth, 472 U.S. 511, 526-27, 105 S.Ct. 2806, 86 L.Ed.2d 411 (1985) (immunity from suit is "effectively lost if a case is erroneously permitted to go to trial"). It is further ORDERED that, regarding the appeal docketed under 06-5324-cv, the appellees' motion to dismiss is referred to the merits panel that decides the appeal. Appellants-petitioners' motion for a writ of mandamus, docketed under 07-0185-op, is DENIED as moot. A scheduling order for the appeal shall issue forthwith and the appeal will be heard on an expedited basis.
In re World Trade Ctr. Disaster Site Litig., No. 06-5324-cv, 2007 U.S.App. LEXIS 8728 (2d Cir. Mar. 9, 2007).
Several parties, including defendants Tully Construction Co. Inc., Tully Industries, Inc. (collectively "Tully") and Verizon New York Inc. ("Verizon"), and plaintiffs *558 Kirk Arsenault and Steve Zablocki, have filed submissions arguing that the Second Circuit stay order does, or does not, apply to them. I write to resolve these recurrent disputes relating to the application of the Second Circuit's stay order to the cases pending before me.
I hold, for the reasons stated below, that for defendants that appealed my ruling of October 17, 2006 to the Second Circuit and which moved for a stay of trial and pretrial proceedings, the Second Circuit's stay order is to be applied to the entirety of the World Trade Center site as defined in Case Management Order No. 3, 21 MC 100 (Feb. 9, 2005) ("CMO3"), regardless whether the claims against these appealing defendants are classified as related to 21 MC 100, 21 MC 102, or 21 MC 103. I hold, further, that defendants which did not appeal to the Second Circuit are not entitled to a stay, and that the cases against them are not stayed. The nonappealing defendants may move to be included in the stay by agreeing to be bound by the outcome of the appeal, or taking prompt steps to join the appeal, or otherwise showing good cause, within 20 calendar days of the date of this Order.
Background
I. Proceedings taking place before the Second Circuit's Stay Order of March 9, 2007
A. Removal and Remand Proceedings
Section 408(b) (1) of the Air Transportation Safety and System Stabilization Act of 2001, Pub.L. 107-42, 115 Stat. 230, reprinted as amended in note following 49 U.S.C. § 40101 ("Stabilization Act"), created a federal cause of action for "damages arising out of the hijacking and subsequent crashes of American Airlines flights 11 and 77, and United Airlines flights 93 and 175, on September 11, 2001." The Act conferred original and exclusive jurisdiction over all such actions on this Court. See Stabilization Act § 408(b) (3). Many plaintiffs who alleged injuries caused by exposure to contaminants at the World Trade Center site during the debris removal effort filed suit in New York State Supreme Court, considering their claims outside the jurisdictional scope of the Stabilization Act. Defendants, under the leadership of the City of New York and its counsel, removed such plaintiffs' cases to federal court. The large number of cases that Defendants removed to this Court, and that were subsequently assigned to me as related to the wrongful death claims filed by the legal successors of those who died on board the above-mentioned flights, were organized as a separate group under master docket number 21 MC 100. See Case Management Order, No. 21 MC 100 (Feb. 11, 2003). Plaintiffs moved to remand.
On June 20, 2003, I ruled on Plaintiffs' motions to remand to state court, holding that "claims of plaintiffs alleging respiratory injuries caused by exposure to contaminants in the demolition and clean-up efforts at the World Trade Center site, up to and including September 29, 2001, [arise under the Stabilization Act]," for they essentially involved searches and rescues of people thought to be trapped in the debris from the collapsed Twin Towers. Hickey v. City of New York, 270 F.Supp.2d 357, 379 (S.D.N.Y.2003). As for the period after September 29, 2001, and at sites other than the World Trade Center, the activities essentially involved the removal of debris characteristic to other workplaces, and I held that such claims were more appropriately governed by developed state law regulating work sites, and more appropriately overseen by experienced Supreme Court Justices. I held, further, that there was no indication that Congress intended to federalize activities for months following the terrorist-related hijackings and crashes on September 11. Thus, I ruled *559 that "[c]laims arising from exposure after September 29, 2001, or at, sites other than the World Trade Center," did not arise under the Stabilization Act, and thus failed to state a federal claim. Id.[2] But I declined to remand these latter cases immediately. Noting that the jurisdictional competency of the federal and state courts to hear such claims might remain in doubt following my order, and could affect the certainty and reliability of all further proceedings, I stayed the order of remand as to the latter cases, and certified my decision for interlocutory appeal pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1292(b). See id at 381; In re World Trade Ctr. Disaster Site Litig., 456 F.Supp.2d at 539.
B. Litigation Activity Pending Resolution of the Interlocutory Appeal to the Second Circuit
With the appeal pending without decision for more than one year, and with the public interest in advancing the cases remaining strong, I ordered that "[i]n light of the time that has passed and other issues that have emerged, the parties should be required to proceed with their pleadings." See Memorandum and Order, No. 21 MC 100 at 2 (Oct. 6, 2004). I noted that the complaints of many plaintiffs were ambiguous as to the dates and places where the alleged injuries occurred, and I required Plaintiffs to file supplements to their pleadings providing such specificity, with Defendants' answers to follow. See id. at 2. The task of providing specificity for thousands of plaintiffs could not be managed within the time periods the parties had thought reasonable and that I had ordered. On January 6, 2005, I convened a case management conference to discuss the issue, and Defendants' desire to file motions to dismiss. The parties agreed to submit a jointly-drafted case management order to govern these and other issues.
The parties submitted their proposals, and on February 7, 2005 I signed Case Management Order No. 2 in the 21 MC 100 master docket, appointing liaison counsel and regulating filing and service of papers. Two days later, I issued Case Management Order No. 3, No. 21 MC 100 (Feb. 9, 2005) CMO3. CMO3 was recommended by "Plaintiffs' Liaison and Steering Committee Counsel, Defendants' Liaison and Steering Committee Counsel, and counsel for other parties," and reflected ideas I had suggested at the recent case management conferences, particularly to order limited discovery relating to the immunity defenses that Defendants proposed to assert as the grounds for their proposed diapositive motions. Id.
CMO3 defined the World Trade Center site as follows:
As used herein, the World Trade Center Site shall be defined as the 16-acre site including the sites of the buildings known as 1 World Trade Center, 2 World Trade Center, 3 World Trade Center (a/k/a the Marriott World Trade Center Hotel), 4 World Trade Center, 5 World Trade Center and 7 World Trade Center, as well as the surrounding plaza and underground shopping parking and public transit facilities. The World Trade Center Site shall also be defined to include the World Financial Center and Winter Garden, the Verizon Building at West and Vesey Streets, the Deutsche Bank Building at Liberty and Greenwich Streets, 90 West Street, St. Nicholas Church, and 125 Cedar Street, *560 as well as the Fresh Kills Landfill site, the debris-removal barges, piers and transfer stations. This definition is provided for the sole purpose of construing the provisions of CMO No. 3 and may not be utilized by the parties or cited by the parties for any other purpose.
Id. at 1-2.
C. The Second Circuit's McNally Decision and the Creation of the 21 MC 102 Docket
On July 14, 2005, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled on Plaintiffs' motions to remand, and thus addressed whether Plaintiffs' respiratory illness claims arose under the Stabilization Act. See McNally v. Port Auth. (In re World Trade Ctr. Disaster Site), 414 F.3d 352 (2d Cir.2005). The court affirmed my ruling that cases alleging injuries caused by exposure to contaminants at the World Trade Center site before September 29, 2001 should not be remanded, but, in dicta, took issue with my determination that cases arising out of injuries sustained elsewhere, or after September 29, 2001, should be remanded to state court. The McNally dictum emphasized the benefits of litigating common issues of law and fact in a single court, and found such approach consistent with Congressional intent to promote uniformity of awards and to ensure that statutory limits on liability for the airlines and other entities would be observed. See 414 F.3d at 371-81. Thus the court rejected the geographical and temporal lines of jurisdictional demarcation I had drawn in Hickey, and construed the Stabilization Act to encompass all the claims before it on interlocutory appeal. See McNally, 414 F.3d at 380.
I determined, following McNally, that I should adopt the dictum it expressed. See In re World Trade Ctr. Disaster Site Litig., No. 21 MC 100, 2005 U.S. Dist. LEIS 14705 (S.D.N.Y. Jul. 22, 2005).[3] With license to construe the Stabilization Act's grant of federal jurisdiction broadly, Defendants removed cases arising out of exposure to contaminants, arising not only from areas comprising the World Trade Center as defined in CMO3, but arising also from other sites in lower Manhattan. I grouped all these cases administratively under the 21 MC 100 category, because they seemed to share some common issues of fact and law with the World Trade Center respiratory and work-place injury cases, and because Defendants' liaison counsel stated that they anticipated the assertion of contribution, indemnification, and similar claims by the defendants in off-site actions against the defendants in 21 MC 100. Case .Management Order, No. 21 MC 100 at 2 (Aug. 9, 2005). Later, however, several weeks after the Second Circuit issued its decision in McNally, I reconsidered the wisdom of one common grouping, and created the 21 MC 102 master docket, recognizing that the off-site cases presented issues of fact and law that were significantly different from those presented in 21 MC 100, including potentially different jurisdictional issues, and should be "supervised on a separate basis." Id. The order that created master docket 21 MC 102 defined it by reference to CMO3, as follows:
Cases brought by plaintiffs such as clean-up personnel alleging personal injury primarily based on circumstances and conduct in the period after the September 11, 2001 attacks, and based on *561 conduct that occurred outside the area defined as the World Trade Center Site in Case Management Order 3 of the 21 MC 100 case now constitute . . . [In re World Trade Center Lower Manhattan Disaster Site Litigation, 21 MC 102(AKH)].
Id. (emphasis in original).
A few months later, on October 24, 2005, the parties submitted and I signed Case Management Order No. 1, 21 MC 102. The order directs liaison counsel to create a database to store and organize specific claims information about plaintiffs associated with the 21 MC 102 docket and directs Plaintiffs to draft a master complaint to address the specific needs of the 21 MC 102 litigants. See Case Management Order No. 1, 21 MC 102 at 1-2 (Oct. 24, 2005). I also recognized that the definition of the World Trade Center site given in CMO3 might need adjustment in light of particular circumstances, and made explicit the provisional nature of the definitions:
Henceforth, upon the filing of a new action, plaintiffs alleging injuries incurred as the result of debris removal and clean-up work in [21 MC 102] locations shall designate to the Clerk the inclusion of their action in 21 MC 102. Any plaintiff who alleges exposure in any location listed in the definition of the World Trade Center Site in CMO No. 3 entered in 21 MC 100, whether in an action already commenced or commenced hereafter, may be subject to a further ruling of this Court as to whether that plaintiff's action should be included in the 21 MC 100 docket.
No party may draw any legal or related conclusion, including, without limitation, liability or insurance coverage, by such designation. No party will attach any significance to such designation, other than its inclusion in 21 MC 102 or 21 MC 100 for administrative, tracking and discovery purposes and for the purposes of this instant CMO or subsequent CMOs addressing discovery and procedural issues, unless further addressed by the Court.
Id. at 2-3. Thus Case Management Order No. 1, 21 MC 102, withholds diapositive legal significance from the World Trade Center site definition of CMO3, and leaves open the possibility of further rulings on any issue that turns on the definition.
D. The City and Its Contractors Assert Immunity-Based Defenses and a Right of Immediate Appeal
The parties associated with the 21 MC 100 docket claims arising out of exposure to contaminants at the World Trade Center site completed discovery pursuant to CMO3 and Defendants moved for judgment on the pleadings and for summary judgment under several theories of immunity. On October 17, 2006, I denied motions by the City and its contractors, ruling that the "precise scope and extent of the immunity varies according to date, place and activity" and that "the fact-intensive nature of the issue makes its resolution unsuitable for resolution by motion." In re World Trade Ctr. Disaster Site Litig., 456 F.Supp.2d at 575. The Opinion and Order reviewed the history of CMO3 and subsequent proceedings, see id. at 539-40, and expressly incorporated the definition of the World Trade Center site set forth in CMO3, see id. at 540 n. 9.
As mentioned above, the City and its. contractors filed a notice of appeal, and asserted that the filing of the notice of appeal ousted the Court's jurisdiction to conduct further pretrial proceedings. I rejected their contentions, see In re World Trade Ctr. Disaster Site Litig., 469 F.Supp.2d 134, but the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit found their contentions "at least arguable" and granted their "motion for a stay of trial as well as pretrial proceedings." Thus, on March 9, *562 2007, the date of the Second Circuit's order, all proceedings against the City and its contractors classified as related to the 21 MC 100 master docket came to a halt.[4]
II. Proceedings taking place after the Second Circuit's Stay Order of March 9, 2007
A. The First Ruling on the Scope of the Second Circuit's Stay Order
The Second Circuit's order to stay trial and pretrial proceedings immediately raised the question, which cases were subject, or should be subject, to the order. By March 9, 2007, thousands of cases had been filed, involving hundreds of defendants, at numerous locations in lower Manhattan. Although many of these cases involved the same issues of immunity that the City of New York argued on appeal to the Second Circuit, others plainly did not. Still other cases alleged multiple geographic locations of injury, raising questions whether the cases should be classified in the 21 MC 100 or 21 MC 102 dockets, or both. Plaintiffs' counsel referred to such cases as "straddler" cases because they raised issues of law and fact shared by plaintiffs in both dockets.
The straddler cases marked the beginning of litigation over the scope of the Second Circuit's stay order. Defendants argued that such cases should be stayed entirely, while Plaintiffs argued that claims against defendants that operated away from the World Trade Center site should be allowed to proceed. To address this issue and other issues relating to the master pleadings in 21 MC 100 and 102, I created a third master docket dedicated to the "straddler" plaintiffs, 21 MC 103. See Case Management Order No. 1, 21 MC 103 (Mar. 28, 2007). I held that "Plaintiffs' claims arising from, or relating to, activities at the World Trade Center sites (as defined in Case Management Order No. 3, 21 MC 100) shall be stayed until such time as the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit rules on Defendants' appeal in 21 MC 100,"[5] but that claims in 21 MC 102 should proceed. By joint letter dated June 14, 2007, Plaintiffs objected to the stay order set out in Case Management Order No. 1, 21 MC 103, arguing that it swept too broadly and without regard to provisions in earlier case management orders that the CMO3 definition should have no effect on the legal rights of the parties. Defendants replied that the CMO3 definition should remain in place because it provides for administrative efficiency insofar as it permits the parties to determine whether a case should be stayed, or not. The parties continued to debate the scope of the Second Circuit's stay, and its relation to the definition of the several master dockets at a status conference on June 15, 2007. See Hearing Tr. at 15-29 (June 15, 2007). In light of the dispute, I asked that motions to stay be made to enable me to rule on the issue. See id. at 29.
B. Motions to Stay Filed by Defendants Verizon and Tully
Defendant Verizon moves to stay all claims against it, regardless whether such claims are classified as related to 21 MC 100, 21 MC 102, or 21 MC 103. Verizon makes two arguments in support of its *563 motion: First, that the Second Circuit stayed all the cases pending in the 21 MC 100 docket, which is defined to include Verizon, and second, that Verizon is entitled to immunity under the New York State Defense Emergency Act and thus should be subject to the stay for the same' reasons as the stay applies to the City and its contractors. Defendant Tully moves to stay all the claims against it, including the claims filed by plaintiffs Kirk Arsenault and Steve Zablocki, for substantially the same reasons.
Plaintiffs argue that this Court has never ruled that the CMO3 definition is coextensive with the scope of the Second Circuit's stay, and such holding would be inappropriate. They further argue that the Court has already determined that only claims against the City and its contractors should be stayed, and only where those contractors were subject to the supervision of the City's Department of Design and Construction. Because debris removal activities at the Verizon and Deutsche Bank buildings were not supervised by the Department of Design and Construction, they argue, claims arising out of such activities are not stayed.
C. Plaintiffs Kirk Arsenault and Steve Zablocki
On October 13, 2004, plaintiffs Kirk Arsenault and Steve Zablocki filed an amended complaint asserting claims against defendants Tully Industries, Inc., Tully Construction Co. Inc., and Deutsche Bank. Pursuant to the Court's instructions that each plaintiff in these consolidated actions file individually, plaintiff Zablocki amended his complaint on December 27, 2006 and, to separate himself from plaintiff Arsenault, initiated a separate civil action under a new docket number, 06 Civ. 15494(AKH). The Civil Cover Sheet for the Zablocki action marked his case as related to 21 MC 100, the master docket for complaints filed by persons injured at the World Trade"Clenter site.
Mr. Zablocki's attorneys subsequently requested that I transfer his case to the 21 MC 102 docket, where he began as a co-plaintiff with Mr. Arsenault. After reviewing the complaint, I declined the request on two grounds first, because Zablocki worked at the Deutsche Bank Building, which, under CMO3, was included in the definition of the World Trade Center site, and second, because Zablocki sued a defendant, Tully Construction Co., Inc., that had joined the City's appeal to the Second Circuit and had obtained a stay of trial and pretrial proceedings. See Order Denying Motion to Transfer Dockets, No. 06 Civ. 15494 (Apr. 13, 2007). By joint letter of August 1, 2007, plaintiff Zablocki reiterates his position that his case should be classified as related to the 21 MC 102 docket, and therefore not stayed, and Defendants reiterate their position that the Zablocki and Arsenault cases should be classified as related to the 21 MC 100 docket, and therefore stayed pursuant to the Second Circuit's order of March 9, 2007 and previous orders of this Court.
Discussion
The question presented is whether all claims arising out of the events of September 11, 2001 against defendants Verizon and Tully are stayed pursuant to the Second Circuit's order of March 9, 2007 and, if not, whether such claims should nevertheless be stayed by order of this Court.
I. Scope of the Second Circuit Stay
The Second Circuit stay order was too brief to make the scope of its application clear. The stay might apply only to the City and the contractors that had joined its appeal; it might apply to every case classified as related to the 21 MC 100 docket; it might apply to every defendant *564 that can assert an "at least arguable" basis for immunity; or it might have an application that combines these criteria. In the absence of definition by the Court of Appeals, it falls to me to define how the stay should be applied.
I hold that for defendants that had appealed my ruling of October 17, 2006 to the Second Circuit and that had moved for a stay of trial and pretrial proceedings, the scope of the Second Circuit's stay order is coextensive with the definition in CMO3 of the World Trade Center site. Because the order of the Court of Appeals granted a motion seeking a stay of "all further proceedings in the 21 MC 100 action," the Second Circuit's stay should apply to all claims against Tully arising out of the area defined as the World Trade Center site in CMO3.
The Court of Appeals granted the stay to the parties that sought it the City and certain of the contractors that the City had engaged those that had appealed to the Court of Appeals. However, it has not been shown that every defendant working, or engaging in activities, within the World Trade Center site had been engaged by the City, and was supervised by the City, with respect to the activities alleged in the complaints in issue. Plaintiffs argue that defendant Verizon's clean-up efforts involved its, and not the City's, direction and supervision. See Declaration of Christopher LoPalo, 21 MC 102 ¶ 17 (Aug. 3, 2007). Since the stated basis of the Second Circuit's ruling, was that appellants-petitioners had put forward an arguable claim of immunity, it would be a mistake to extend the stay to parties that had not presented a good faith basis for a similar defense. Verizon argues for such a defense, but has not yet shown its entitlement.
II. Application of Stay as Applied to Other Defendants in 21 MC 100, 102, and 103
The Second Circuit's stay order does not apply to cases against defendants that did not join the City's appeal, or that cannot show an arguable basis for immunity, or that do not wish to obtain a stay of the proceedings. Therefore, if a defendant that did not join the City's appeal wishes to stay the proceedings against it on grounds of immunity, it may move promptly for a stay in this Court pursuant to the Second Circuit's interim order. Otherwise, the case against the defendant is not stayed, and the parties may proceed with discovery.
A. Verizon
Defendant Verizon has moved for a stay of the proceedings, on the basis of its affirmative defense of immunity from suit under the New York State Defense Emergency Act. Verizon asserts that it "acted at the direction of City, State, and federal authorities to stabilize Lower Manhattan's telecommunications network, a task that required restoration of the Verizon Building." Verizon's Motion to Stay at 2. That is not enough. Verizon must show when, and by whom, it was engaged, and at whose direction work was supervised, and the relation of such work to the task of restoring "essential community services." Verizon, if it wishes to gain the protection of the Second Circuit's stay, must move promptly in this Court to make such a showing, or promptly join the appeal to the Second Circuit, or agree to be bound by the determination to be made by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, within 20 calendar days of the date of this Order.
B. World Financial Center
By letter dated August 27, 2007, defendant Merrill Lynch & Co. Inc., the American *565 Express defendants, the Nomura defendants, the Brookfield defendants, and defendant Battery Park City Authority, all of which have been sued in connection with work allegedly performed at the World Financial Center, suggested that the Court consider modifying the CMO3 World Trade Center site definition to exclude the World Financial Center.[6] Counsel advised the Court that these defendants are not interested in staying the cases against them, and prefer that litigation proceedings continue.
I rule that the cases against these defendants are not stayed, and that such cases may proceed with discovery, except to the extent that discovery proceedings seek to involve defendants to which the Second Circuit's stay applies. The public interest in moving these cases as expeditiously as possible outweighs the risk of duplicative discovery at such time as the stay may be lifted.
III. Motion to Transfer dockets
Tully's motion to transfer all actions currently pending against it, from the 21 MC 102 docket to the 21 MC 100 docket, is denied without prejudice to renewal. While further proceedings in cases against Tully arising out of the CMO3-defined area are stayed, there is no need to create further administrative work for the lawyers or for courthouse staff, especially in relation to the uncertain status of the Deutsche Bank Building. A transfer may be appropriate at some later time.
The World Financial Center defendants state in their letter of August 27, 2007 that the cases against them have been classified as related to 21 MC 102, even though the World Financial Center falls within the CMO3 definition. For the reasons given, and because Plaintiffs and these defendants wish to proceed, there is no need to transfer cases at this time.
A plaintiff filing a ` complaint after the date of this order should continue to mark his case as related to 21 MC 100 if the claims arise out of work performed within the CMO3-defined area. The Court will adjust the definition of the 21 MC 100 master docket, as and to the extent appropriate, after the Second Circuit issues its ruling on the pending appeal.
Conclusion
For the foregoing reasons, defendant Tully's motion to stay is GRANTED and defendant Verizon's motion to stay is DENIED without prejudice to renewal. Accordingly, the actions filed by plaintiffs Zablocki and Arsenault are STAYED.
SO ORDERED.
NOTES
[1] The defendants that appealed my Opinion and Order of October 17, 2006 and subsequently moved the Second Circuit for a stay of trial and pretrial proceedings are the City of New York; AMEC Construction Management, Inc.; AMEC Earth & Environmental, Inc.; Bechtel Associates Professional Corporation; Bechtel Construction, Inc.; Bechtel Corporation; Bechtel Environmental, Inc.; Bovis Lend Lease LMB, Inc.; Evergreen Recycling of Corona (E.R.O.C.); Plaza Construction Corp.; Tully Construction Co., Inc.; Turner Construction Company; and Turner/Plaza, A Joint Venture.
[2] Previously, I had held that certain non-respiratory injuries to workers at the World Trade Center site did not arise under the Stabilization Act, and I remanded them to the New York Supreme Court. See Spagnuolo v. Port Auth., 245 F.Supp.2d 518 (S.D.N.Y.2002) (plaintiff allegedly struck by falling oxygen tank); Graybill v. City of New York, 247 F.Supp.2d 345 (S.D.N.Y.2002) (plaintiff allegedly struck by falling steel girder).
[3] After McNally, I remanded one case to state court for Defendant's failure to "show any connection, other than geography, between Plaintiff's alleged injury and the events of September 11." Milling v. City of New York, No. 05 Civ. 7189, 2006 WL 1652706 at *1 (S.D.N.Y.2006) (plaintiff allegedly suffered injuries caused by trip and fall at Battery Place on May 14, 2002).
[4] The Court of Appeals took two years and a month to decide the issue of jurisdiction posed by Hickey. Now, we have begun another delay to allow the higher court to address Defendants" assertions of immunity. Meanwhile, somewhere between 8,000 and 10,000 plaintiffs, many of whom claim to have lifedebilitating and life-shortening injuries, are denied progress in their cases toward final determination of their claims.
[5] This Order supersedes that aspect (paragraph 9) of my order of March 28, 2007.
[6] By letter dated September 3, 2007, defendants Trammell Crow Company and Trammell Crow Corporate Services, Inc., join Defendants' letter of August 27, 2007.