Judge Orders Separate Trials in Silverstein Insurance Case

NEW YORK CITY-World Trade Center developer Larry Silverstein and reinsurer Swiss Re will go to trial in November as planned, but a new ruling has split the case down the middle. A first trial will decide whether the Sept. 11 bombings of the twin towers constituted one coordinated act or two separate ones. Once that issue has been decided and unless a settlement is reached, a second trial will determine the property’s value.

The two issues had been lumped together until Judge John S. Martin bifurcated the case at Thursday’s hearing. But the lion’s share of attention garnered by the case has been centered on the one-event-versus-two argument. Silverstein has used every available opportunity to assert his claim that the bombings were two separate incidents while Swiss Re maintains that there was one attack and that Silverstein is entitled to only one payout. Since the maximum payout for a single occurrence is variously reported as somewhere between $3.5 billion and $3.8 billion, the stakes are astronomical and the rhetoric from both sides has become increasingly heated.

“The whole world saw two separate planes hit two separate buildings at two separate times,” said Silverstein spokesman Howard Rubenstein in a statement following the hearing. “We are fully confident that the jury will conclude that there were two occurrences’ for insurance purposes and that Swiss Re and the other insurers will not succeed in getting away with paying only one-half of what they owe.”