This time, it’s the Blackwater Worldwide corporation, asking for Shari’a law to be applied to a fatal airplaine crash that took place in Afghanistan. It’s actually a pretty routine sort of lex locus delecti argument, but some find it ironic that a military services contractor would try to invoke Shari’a law in a U.S. court. I’m less impressed with the irony; it just seems like good, aggressive lawyering to me. And an argument like this comes from the lawyer, not from the client. Interestingly, the motion cites as precedent the case of Bridas Corp. v. Unocal Corp. (Tex.Ct.App. 2000) 16 S.W.3d 893, one of the cases I analyzed when I first got interested in this issue and one of the cases I spoke about in my presentation to the local legal professionals association.
