There are no other words I can think of to describe the decision made today by our justice system to uphold the statute of limitation argument the city is making against our case against them other than ….
For 19 years we can only guess what happened.
The idea of cops being the ones who murdered him was the furthest from our minds.
As soon as we learned the truth we filed suit.
And now we are told that because he was killed in 1986, according to the law there is a statute for filing that begins from the day he went missing? From the day he disappeared and his body was hidden by NYPD cops? From the day we frantically searched for him for NINETEEN YEARS not knowing what happened.
My father had a wife who loved him dearly. He had parents, siblings, friends. And he had me and my sister who worshipped him. Our lives were torn a-thunder in way I wouldn’t wish upon my worst enemy.
We couldn’t get life insurance. Social Security. We lost our provider. We lost everything.
By the mercy of G-d we got closure 19 years later with the mysterious case of Israel Greenwald being solved. We were shocked. We were grateful.
And without hesitation we filed suit against the NYPD and city who hired these guys, who knew these guys were dirty and who gave them power nonetheless.
POWER to kill my father and alter our lives forever.
No compensation can make up for what we lost.
Judge Weinstein back in 2006 followed the letter of the law and though he agreed they were 100% guilty, threw the convictions out. That seemed ludicrous then. Thank God, the convictions were reinstated 2 long years later in 2008.
Now it’s 2013 and another Judge opts to go by the “letter” of the law and uphold the statute of limitations argument even though we could never ever have filed suit within the statute unless we had psychic powers, and even then we would have no right or case since NO ONE KNEW that cops killed my father!
Ludicrous!
The case will go forward despite, but this ludicrous “law” must be changed to allow for exceptional situations such as this. This is not a black and white case!
If this law is not changed and this decision not rethought, than not only will this serve as a mockery of our justice system, but it will set a dangerous precedent for future cases such as this.
Cases such as if a Doctor performs surgery and negligently leaves a dangerous material in the body of his patient, and his patient gets very sick and only discovers this many years later.
The law must allow for the statute to begin ticking from when the deed becomes known and not from when the deed is done.
Update: Just googled this…..and this makes sense.
When does the clock start ticking for statutes of limitations?
- Earliest: The date of harm.
- Later: The date on which the plaintiff reasonably should have discovered the harm. This refers to the date when a judge considers it fair to say that the plaintiff should have known about the harm, even if the plaintiff didn’t actually know about it.
- Latest: The date on which the plaintiff actually discovered the harm.