By Agency Reporter

Monday, 22 Nov 2010

WASHINGTON: The long, expensive, emotionally racking lawsuits filed by more than 10,000 World Trade Center rescue and recovery workers have come to an end, as all but a small minority have agreed to accept settlements.

According to a report by nydailynews.com, each and every one is wished the very best and, more importantly, fast success in the fight to win final passage of a 9/11 health care and compensation bill in the lame-duck session of the Senate.

While that battle goes on, the lawsuit claimants have collectively rendered judgment that the settlements offered to them by a special federally-funded insurance pool are, if not fair, as good as could be gotten under tough legal circumstances.

Second-guessing is not in order. That said, some points are abundantly clear.

The court actions took far too much time, cost far too much money and never should have been necessary in the first place. It was the United States government‘s continuing failure to meet its obligations that forced thousands of men and women, who responded to a national emergency, into filing suits.

They were sick. They were dying. Official America shrugged.

Into that breach stepped trial lawyers, starting with a Westchester attorney, who met a couple of sickened responders on a kids‘ soccer field and recognised early on that there was a link between exposure to Ground Zero toxins and illnesses.

As much as anyone, David Worby was a catalyst for the suits now settled, for which he deserves applause. But it must be said and we have said it numerous times that he and partners Paul Napoli and Marc Bern wanted too big a cut of any recoveries, encouraged misinformed thinking that there was a proven link between cancers and Trade Center exposure and signed up as plaintiffs too many people who were not sick at all.

Presiding skillfully over this mass of litigation was Manhattan Federal Judge Alvin Hellerstein. He performed a great service by driving it to a conclusion that included forcing the lawyers to shave their fees and to eat $6m in interest costs on money they had borrowed to finance the lawsuits.

 

Source: Punch