David Gough in Nairobi and Martin Kettle in Washington
A California lawyer who was suspended two years ago for “ambulance chasing” tactics is spearheading a series of legal claims – some against the United States State Department – by hundreds of Kenyan victims of last year’s US embassy bombing in Nairobi. According to some estimates, the victims’ lawyers could earn as much as $500-million.
John Burris is one of a number of US lawyers launching the claims on behalf of up to 2 300 Kenyan victims who will pay these attorneys a third of any damages award arising from the blast last August, which killed 213 people, mostly Kenyans. If the claims – which have been brought in the US in hopes that the courts will agree they have jurisdiction – are successful, each victim could win between $250 000 and $1,5-million depending on plaintiffs’ injuries or losses.
The cases filed against the State Department claim Washington failed to act on warnings from its ambassador in Kenya that the Nairobi embassy was a terrorist target.
Some $1,5-billion in claims have been lodged so far. Burris says $40-million was set aside by the US Congress to help cover losses, but this is insufficient. “In my view that is a small amount. It won’t cover the business losses, let alone the human suffering,” Burris told a law magazine this month.
Burris, based in Oakland, California, is best known for representing Rodney King, the African-American whose beating by the Los Angeles police was captured on a video that helped to make the case world-famous in the early 1990s.
Burris visited Kenya last month to gather details on the bombing victims’ claims. An advertisement was placed in local newspapers soliciting victims to sign up to the suit. The response was rapid, and thousands of claimants have come forward.
Two years ago the California Supreme Court suspended Burris for one month and put him on probation for a year for mass mailing letters and contingency-fee agreements to the victims of three different disasters.
Meanwhile payments already made to Kenyan bomb victims have so far been modest. Official compensation, partly financed by the US government, has ranged from $1 000 for a head injury to about $10 000 for the death of a relative. The average per capita income in Kenya is $300 a year.
Contingency-fee litigation is illegal in Kenya, and lawyers’ organisations in Nairobi are concerned about the conduct of the US lawyers.