at 22:16 on March 11, 2010, EDT.
By David B. Caruso, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

NEW YORK - After years of fighting in court, lawyers representing the city, construction companies and more than 10,000 ground zero rescue and recovery workers have agreed to a settlement that could pay up to $657.5 million to responders sickened by dust from the destroyed World Trade Center.

The settlement was announced Thursday evening by the WTC Captive Insurance Co., a special entity established to indemnify the city and its contractors against potential legal action as they moved to clean up the site after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.

The deal, which still must be approved by a judge and the workers themselves, would make the city and other companies represented by the insurer liable for a minimum of $575 million, with more money available to the sick if certain conditions are met.

Most if not all of the money would come out of a $1 billion grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg called the settlement "a fair and reasonable resolution to a complex set of circumstances."

"The resolution of the World Trade Center litigation will allow the first responders and workers to be compensated for injuries suffered following their work at Ground Zero," he said in a statement.

Marc Bern, a senior partner with the law firm Worby, Groner, Edelman&Napoli, Bern LLP, which negotiated the deal, said it was "a good settlement."

"We are gratified that these heroic men and women who performed their duties without consideration of the health implications will finally receive just compensation for their pain and suffering, lost wages, medical and other expenses, as the U.S. Congress intended when it appropriated this money," he said in a statement.

Workers who wish to participate in the settlement would need to prove they had been at the World Trade Center site or other facilities that handled debris. They also would have to turn over medical records and provide other information aimed at weeding out fraudulent or dubious claims.

For the settlement to be enforced, 95 per cent of the workers would need to agree to be bound by its terms.

The agreement comes with just two months to go until the first trials are to begin in the case. Thousands of police officers, firefighters and construction workers who put in time at the 16-acre site in lower Manhattan had filed lawsuits against the city, claiming it sent them to ground zero without proper protective equipment.

Many of those workers now claim to have fallen ill. A majority complained of a respiratory problem similar to asthma, but the suits also sought damages for hundreds of other types of ailments, including cancer.

Lawyers for the city claimed it did its best to get respiratory equipment to everyone who needed it. They also had challenged some of the claims as based on the thinnest of medical evidence, noting that thousands of the people suing suffered from conditions common in the general population or from no illness at all.

Under the settlement, the task of deciding what each worker will be paid will fall to a neutral third party, to be picked by the two sides. Lawyers for the plaintiffs have previously said they favour Kenneth Feinberg, the special master who determined payouts from the federal fund set up to compensate victims of the terror attacks.

Payments will be based on a system that ranks each illness by severity and factors in potential exposure to the dust.

Some workers are likely to receive payments of only a few thousand dollars. Others could be in line to get more than $1 million, depending on their injuries.

A special insurance fund will be set up to cover workers who develop cancer in the future.

Lawyer Andrew Carboy, who represented a group of firefighters in the case, said he would urge them to accept the deal.

"The proposed settlement demonstrates that the justice system can tackle such a factually complicated and emotionally charged situation," he said. "The settlement, most importantly, will treat each worker as an individual. And their settlement will be based on the merits of their case."

Both sides in the case were scheduled to appear Friday afternoon before the federal judge handling the litigation, U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein, who previously had said he favoured a settlement but planned to analyze it carefully to make sure it was fair.

The settlement would mean a postponement or cancellation of the trials tentatively scheduled to begin in May. Some of the cases scheduled to be heard first included that of a firefighter who died of throat cancer and another who needed a lung transplant, as well as workers with less serious ailments, including a Consolidated Edison utility company employee with limited exposure to the debris pile and no current serious illness.

The $1 billion fund created by Congress to help insure the city has been depleted somewhat by the long legal battle in the case, with the bill so far running to more than $200 million.

The Worby, Groner, Edelman&Napoli, Bern law partnership, which represents 9,000 of the plaintiffs, is expected to take as much as a third or more of the total settlement in legal fees, based on contingency agreements it signed with each client.


©The Canadian Press, 2010

It's about time

excellent.

about damn time.

http://www.newjerseynewsr...-since-911

It is estimated that more people will die from the aftermath of 9/11 than those who perished in the attacks. To date, over 800 first responders have died.

I remember watching the aftermath and it being reported that the dust "was not believed to be harmful" and asking myself, "Who the hell are they asking?"

The $1 billion fund created by Congress to help insure the city has been depleted somewhat by the long legal battle in the case, with the bill so far running to more than $200 million.

The Worby, Groner, Edelman&Napoli, Bern law partnership, which represents 9,000 of the plaintiffs, is expected to take as much as a third or more of the total settlement in legal fees, based on contingency agreements it signed with each client.


So out of that billion, that's $500 million to law firms. Must be what Congress intended.

YouOughtaUnderstand said:

That's an incredible statistic! I was working right across the street from the WTC the day it happened and I'm so glad that I got out of there and didn't stick around. A police officer told us that the best thing to do was get as far away as you could and head home. Some of the best advice anybody has ever gave me but so many well meaning people that stayed behind to help are now sick.
If we get attacked again, there will be far fewer people willing to help based on how first responders have been treated over the years!

...and $657M seems like a low number.

Nothinbutjoy said:

that is bullshit because I started to get sick as fuck. And i split

joseph8 said:

I don't believe that.

SUPRMAN said:

in new york, i would. during the almost 10 years since, we have seen this story play out in our papaers and local news in a way the rest of the country probably hasn't.

IAintTheOne said:

Exactly, those buildings were full of asbestos, both towers, so you know what those workers were exposed to during the cleanup, and what went into the air as well. The medical facility I work for has increased its patient load soon after that incident, with so many New Yorkers coming in with complaints of breathing/lung issues. I can't see how anyone living in NYC when this tragedy happened was not affected by what lingered in the air after that incident.

joseph8 said:

[/quote]I agree with you, because the public was lied to. For months they said the workers had nothing to fear, then down the road many health official stated that the dust from the debris was a health risk. I worked in both WTC 1 and 2 for a span of 4 years, and was specifically told by a facilities worker, that both buildings were full of asbestos, that's why I couldn't understand how there wasn't a health risk for those who worked during the cleanup process.

I work for medical facility and I can tell you that so many police officers and fireman who helped out in that area, were coming in with lung issues and related health problems, they didn't experience before they helped in the "cleanup" process, especially working in that area for months moving the debris, along with other non-firmen/non-police citizens. I agree though that many citizens will be reluctant to volunteer for the cleanup process, if such a tragedy happens again, not to say people won't want to help, but they'll take more safety precautions during the "cleanup" process, like wearing respiratory masks, gloves and other protected gear.
[Edited 3/12/10 10:55am]

cborgman said:

But as they did on 9/11 people will respond. Do you sit and wait for protective gear and just listen to people trapped die?
Do you just walk away because there's no monetary compensation for you?
I guess . . . ..

SUPRMAN said:

i wouldnt wait but it's largely because, at the risk of sounding arrogant, i have a huge heart and am pretty selfless. and with my health problems i feel like my timecard is already pre-punched a little early.

it is worth mentioning that i was not in ny during 9/11, so mine is still a naive and unexperienced take.

and i am more than confident that i am not the only one, however... watching a lot of the interviews of respondants who have really suffered and died while fighting to get some coverage, seeing the subway posters about this, reading the articles... i think there are a lot of new yorkers who would quickly choose to not risk that again. and while i probably wouldn't choose that, i don't think they would be evil or selfish for soing so.

hopefully, we never have to face such a situation again, but...

Um, seems to me that we should be suing bin Laden and every single person related to him. I swear terrorists must roll over laughing hysterically "We bomb the Americans, kill them and then get their own people to sue them, and spend the bulk of their money on lawsuits and a war"

That said, anyone with half a brain should have never opened their mouth and said that breathing all that dust would be fine and dandy. Sue that doofus!