Perles Law Firm, P.C.

Glenn Kessler
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, January 26, 2008; Page A12
Read Online

A provision buried deep in the defense authorization bill passed by Congress this week could release hundreds of millions of dollars now beyond the reach of victims of terrorist attacks struggling to collect damages from foreign governments. But experts say it also may undermine one of the administration’s key foreign policy achievements: improved relations with Libya.

Though some terrorist victims and their families have won huge damage awards, very little can be collected from sovereign nations, such as Iran, which ignore the judgments. The new law potentially allows for a wide range of assets to be seized, doing away with a previous requirement that the nation had to have day-to-day control over the assets. In the past, for example, victims have even tried to claim Persian artifacts in museums in an effort to win payment from Iran. (more…)

By Dan Ephron | Newsweek Web Exclusive

Steve Perles is an exceedingly successful lawyer. In the past decade the District of Columbia litigator has won more than $6 billion in civil suit judgments, including a $2.6 billion verdict in September against Iran for its role in the 1983 bombing in Beirut that killed 241 U.S. Marines. Most foreign countries are shielded from lawsuits under a legal principle known as sovereign immunity, but a bill passed by Congress in 1996 opened the door to civil suits against a handful of countries deemed state sponsors of terrorism—and Perles has used the legislation to seek compensation for the families of Americans killed or wounded in Mideast-related attacks. But for all his success in winning large judgments, Perles has managed to collect only about 1 percent of the damages for his clients (and for himself: he takes most of the cases on a contingency basis). The problem, he told NEWSWEEK recently, is that existing laws make it hard to trace and seize the few assets these countries still have in the United States. (more…)

R. Robin McDonald
Fulton County Daily Report

When Lt. Col. Dominic R. Baragona died in a traffic accident on an Iraqi highway in 2003, few would have foreseen that his death would prompt a federal judge in Atlanta to levy a $4.9 million judgment against a U.S. military contractor in Kuwait.

Baragona was killed when a tractor-trailer rig owned by Kuwait & Gulf Link Transport Co. struck the Humvee in which he was riding on May 19, 2003, as he was leaving Iraq to return home. He became, at that time, the highest-ranking military officer to die during the United States’ 2003 invasion of Iraq. He is buried in Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia.

The legal battle that followed Baragona’s death sought to hold the Kuwaiti company, under contract to the U.S. military, financially liable for the Army officer’s accidental death. Filed by Baragona’s parents, Dominic F. and Vilma Baragona of Florida, on behalf of their son’s estate, the case eventually involved Washington lawyers (one a former staff attorney for U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, and the other a former brigadier general in the Army Judge Advocate General’s Corps); the chief investigative judge in the trial of Saddam Hussein who was later spirited out of Iraq for his own safety; and President Bush. (more…)

ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) — A federal court has ordered a Kuwait-based contractor to pay nearly $5 million in damages to the family of a U.S. military officer killed in Iraq — a rare court decision holding a contracting company accountable for its actions in the war.

Army Lt. Col. Dominic “Rocky” Baragona was just an hour away from a U.S. base in Kuwait — ultimately headed home to the United States — when a tractor-trailer operated by Kuwait and Gulf Link Transport Company slammed into his Humvee on May 19, 2003, killing him instantly.

Baragona, a West Point graduate, was 42 years old and the highest-ranking soldier to have died in the war at the time.

His family filed a wrongful death suit against KGL. Earlier this month, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia sided with the family, holding the Kuwait company negligent in Baragona’s death for failing to provide safe passage on the three-lane road where the accident occurred. (more…)

By Matt Apuzzo, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON — Iran must pay $2.65 billion to the families of the 241 U.S. service members killed in the 1983 bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut, a federal judge declared Friday in a ruling that left survivors and families shedding tears of joy.

U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth described his ruling as the largest-ever such judgment by an American court against another country. “These individuals, whose hearts and souls were forever broken, waited patiently for nearly a quarter century for justice to be done,” he said.

Iran has been blamed for supporting the militant group Hezbollah, which carried out the suicide bombing in Beirut. It was the worst terrorist act against U.S. targets until the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. (more…)

WASHINGTON (CNN) — A judge Friday ordered Iran to pay more than $2.6 billion to victims and their families in the 1983 bombing of a U.S. Marine barracks in Lebanon that killed 241 Americans.

Relatives of victims of the 1983 Marine barracks attack in Lebanon react after Friday’s ruling in Washington.

“The cost of state-sponsored terrorism just went up,” said U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth in his ruling for a group of 800 lawsuits related to the Beirut suicide attack. (more…)