Saturday, March 13, 2010
AFTER years of fighting in court, lawyers representing New York city, construction companies and more than 10,000 ground zero rescue and recovery workers agreed to a settlement that could pay up to $657.5 million (€477m) to responders sickened by dust from the destroyed World Trade Centre.
The settlement was announced by the WTC Captive Insurance Co, established to indemnify the city and its contractors against potential legal action as they moved to clean up the site after the September 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 $575m.
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".
Marc Bern, with the law firm Worby, Groner, Edelman and Napoli, Bern LLP, which negotiated the deal, said: "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 US Congress intended when it appropriated this money."
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