A whopping $712 million settlement was approved Thursday for approximately 10,000 rescue and clean-up workers who claim their health was compromised at Ground Zero. Compensatory payments will be allotted even to plaintiffs who currently have no qualifying injuries.
These people don t even need to be sick to qualify they can still get $3,000, based on fear of future illness, says ACSH s Jeff Stier. These are people who have been screened for nearly 10 years, and we still haven t been able to identify any illness.
Stier has previously pointed out that most of the health claims about Ground Zero dust exposure are exaggerated. I m worried that $712 million will be divided up among people who can t prove their health problems are from working at Ground Zero, he says.
Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein of the United States District Court in Manhattan adjudicated the case and advised the plaintiff s lawyers to reduce their fees from one-third to one-quarter of the total payout. Stier comments, The plaintiffs are well-represented, the New York City defendants are well represented, but no one is representing the American taxpayer who is footing this bill.
