New Settlement Awards $712.5M to Ground Zero Workers

(June 10) -- A renegotiated deal with the city of New York will give more than 10,000 ground zero rescue and cleanup workers a payout of $712.5 million in compensation for health damages they said they suffered at the site of the Sept. 11 attacks.

After almost three months of negotiations over the terms of the payout, the city's insurer, WTC Captive Insurance Co., reached a new settlement today in federal court with the firefighters, police officers and construction workers who were exposed to toxic dust at ground zero, The New York Times reports.

The new deal represents a significant bump from initial proposals of $575 million and $657.5 million.

Members of the New York Police Deptartment work at ground zero of the World Trade Center

Roberto Schmidt, AFP / Getty Images

Thousands of rescue and cleanup workers would get a new and higher multimillion-dollar payout as part of a proposed deal with New York over the health costs suffered after 9/11.

Under the terms of the new settlement, the insurer will grant the workers the increased $712.5 million payout and the plaintiffs' attorneys will reduce their legal fees of more than 30 percent and cap their rates at 25 percent. The negotiation will allow the plaintiffs to keep an additional $50 million in damages.

"This settlement ensures guaranteed, immediate and just compensation to the heroic men and women who performed their duties without consideration of the health implications," Marc J. Bern, one of the plaintiffs' lawyers, told the Times.

U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein has not ruled on the proposal, but lawyers said in a statement that Hellerstein deemed the deal "fair and reasonable." Hellerstein rejected an earlier settlement in March, saying the package was too generous to the plaintiffs' lawyers and not generous enough to the ground zero workers who sued the city over respiratory illnesses and other injuries they say were sustained at the World Trade Center site.

Lawyers on both sides presented the settlement at a hearing today.

"We believe a debt was incurred on 9/11 ... and that this ... goes a long way toward repaying that debt," Paul Napoli, a lawyer representing the ground zero workers, told The Associated Press.

Michael Cardozo, the city's top lawyer, told the AP that Mayor Michael Bloomberg supports the new proposal.

"We believe this settlement is fair to all concerned," Cardozo said.

Ninety-five percent of the plaintiffs will have to approve the agreement, which covers ailments such as asthma, lung disease and some types of cancer.

The original legal settlement would have awarded payments ranging from $3,250 to $9,760 to the 40 percent to 60 percent of the plaintiffs with relatively minor ailments, according to the AP. Others who are more seriously ill would have received up to $1 million.