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Bode & Grenier, LLP Wins $5.15 Million Punitive Damages Award on Behalf of Father Whose Son Died in Terrorist Bombing in Saudi Arabia

Bode & Grenier, LLP (Washington, District of Columbia) recently won a $5.15 million punitive damages award against the Government of Iran on behalf of a father whose son died in a 1996 terrorist attack in Saudi Arabia. Rimkus v. The Islamic Republic of Iran, 2010 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 120991 (D.D.C. November 16, 2010) (Lamberth, J.). This punitive damages award follows a prior $5 million compensatory damages award, thus bringing the total amount awarded to $10.15 million.

In this litigation, brought under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (“FSIA”), Bode & Grenier, LLP, represents the plaintiff, Joseph J. Rimkus, who is the father of a U.S. Air Force Airman who was killed, along with eighteen other U.S. Air Force personnel, in the brutal June 25, 1996, terrorist bombing of the housing complex, Khobar Towers, at the U.S. military base in Dharhran, Saudi Arabia.

In his decision, Judge Lamberth noted that the state-sponsored terrorism exception to the FSIA “permits plaintiffs to seek damages which ‘may include economic damages, solatium, pain and suffering, and punitive damages.’” Rimkus, 2010 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 120991, at *54 (quoting 28 U.S.C. § 1605A) (Emphasis added). He based the award of punitive damages on his finding that the terrorist bombing was carried out with material support from the defendants -- the Islamic Republic of Iran, the Iranian Ministry of Information and Security, and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps -- whose actions he characterized as having been “nothing short of extreme, outrageous, and beyond all bounds of civil decency.” Rimkus, 2010 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 120991, at *55.

Pursuant to the requirements of the FSIA, Bode & Grenier, LLP is currently working on serving a translated copy of the November 16, 2010, decision on the Government of Iran through appropriate diplomatic channels, and is currently working on efforts to collect on the judgment

For more information on Bode Grenier, please visit the International Society of Primerus Law Firms