while I haven't had any sympathy for people who accept employment with a private contractor in a war zone i do hope the complaintaints win because it may open up awareness with the majority of people who don't understand the connection of Private Contractors and the Bushies..........

An appeals court has handed a federal court judge in Houston a possible road map for dealing with lawsuits brought on behalf of KBR truck drivers wounded or killed in a bloody ambush in Iraq four years ago.

In a ruling Wednesday, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans said it may be possible to resolve the lawsuits without making a "constitutionally impermissible review of wartime decision-making."

The appeals court decision overturns a 2006 ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Gray Miller in Houston. He decided the courts lacked the authority to second-guess military decisions in a war zone.

But the appeals court ruled the plaintiffs had presented "a plausible set of facts" that might allow them to pursue their claims that KBR misled applicants when it told them they would be safe while working for the company in the Middle East "without questioning the Army's role."

The suits accuse KBR and its former parent company, Halliburton, of knowingly sending a convoy into a dangerous area where it was attacked on April 9, 2004. Six truck drivers died in what has been called the Good Friday massacre, a seventh is missing and presumed dead, and 15 were wounded.

Now the cases will land again in Miller's court, where they are expected to get a fuller airing, a prospect plaintiffs' attorneys say is favorable.

"I am extremely confident — to a 100 percent degree — that I will be able to, following the court's ruling, prove my case beyond any doubt against Halliburton and KBR," said T. Scott Allen, a Houston lawyer who represents most of the 19 truck drivers and family members who have filed suit against KBR and Halliburton.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/headli...iz/5809024.html