|
Court Clears Way for 9/11
Illness Lawsuit
JOSEPH GOLDSTEIN
NY
Sun
Thursday, March 27, 2008
A federal appeals court has refused to give New York City immunity
from the lawsuits of thousands of city workers and construction
laborers who say they now suffer from respiratory illnesses after
they helped clean up ground zero in the aftermath of the September
11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
The lawsuits claim that the city failed to ensure that ground
zero was a safe work place. High among the claims is the assertion
that the city failed to enforce rules requiring workers to wear
respirators while working amid the toxins and rubble.
Citing the unprecedented nature of the disaster, New York City
and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, both defendants
in the suits, have argued that they are entitled to immunity from
the claims. The defendants say they cannot be required to pay
out to the workers what could amount to billions of dollars in
damages.
(Article continues below)
The first significant ruling in the case came in 2006, when a
federal district judge in Manhattan, Alvin Hellerstein, found
that the city was only entitled to immunity for its conduct in
the days immediately after the terrorist attacks. The lawsuits
could go forward against the city's wishes, Judge Hellerstein
ruled, to give workers the chance to prove their claims that ground
zero remained an unsafe work environment even weeks and months
after September 11, 2001.
The city and port authority appealed. In a victory for the ailing
workers, today?s decision by the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals
rejected that appeal and largely affirmed Judge Hellerstein?s
decision.
The appeal was decided by Judges Jon Newman, Sonia Sotomayor,
and Richard Wesley.
Lawyers for either side could not be reached for comment.
|
INFOWARS:
BECAUSE THERE'S A WAR ON FOR YOUR MIND
|
|
