The 79-year-old man sat silently in the back of the courtroom on Long Island, 20 miles from his home in Queens. Here the man, Robin Davis, settled in for what promised to be a strange trial in this mostly empty room. His lawsuit centered on the actions of a person long dead. His adversaries were Long Island bureaucrats who had never heard of that person or his reported misdeeds. Mr. Davis had long been widely known for his philanthropy on behalf of one cause: fighting child abuse.

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Persons: Merrill Lynch, Robin Davis, Long, Davis, Eisenhower Organizations: Bank of America Locations: Queens, New York City