Ruling: Agency not liable in 9/11

July 28, 2011 at 12:00a.m.

Newsday

NEW YORK

The Massachusetts agency that operates Boston’s Logan Airport had no legal responsibility for security failures that allowed armed terrorists to board flights on Sept. 11, a Manhattan federal judge ruled Wednesday as he narrowed the first trial of a hijack victim’s lawsuit this fall.

U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein also said that the mere fact that hijackers were able to somehow get knives and Mace aboard United Flight 175 would not be enough to prove negligence by the airline in the death of hockey scout Mark Bavis, who died on the flight.

“I don’t envision a recitation of all the things that happened on Sept. 11 and an argument that it couldn’t have happened without negligence,” Hellerstein told a lawyer for the family of Bavis, who scouted for the Los Angeles Kings.

Bavis’ mother, Mary Bavis, 81, is the only relative of a hijacking victim who pursued a suit instead of taking a payment from the federal Sept. 11 fund. The Nov. 7 trial will focus on purported negligence by United and Huntleigh USA, which operated United’s security checkpoints at Logan in 2001.

Mark Bavis’ brothers, Patrick and Michael Bavis, attended Wednesday’s hearing, and were dismayed that Hellerstein brushed aside arguments that Massport — the state agency that runs Logan — had overall responsibility for the checkpoints and ignored red flags about lax procedures.