Ground Zero Workers Agree to Settle Health Lawsuits - NYTimes.com

Ground Zero Workers Agree to Settle Health Lawsuits - NYTimes.com



The  buzz is about the big settlement and how the plaintiffs' lawyers' fees were cut, and how the lawyers had to eat the cost of borrowing the money (contrary to their contracts with their clients).  


Nobody thinks it was illegal to borrow the money and charge the costs against the recovery - Judge Hellerstein just felt he had the authority to exercise unprecedented control.  And did.  I am sympathetic to the "quasi class action" rationale that Judge Weinstein developed in the Zyprexa cases. 467 F. Supp. 2d 256 (December 5, 2006) which Judge Hellerstein adopted to force concessions - mainly by plaintiffs lawyers.


But little ink is spilled by that huge driver of litigation costs: the all-out defense which included 1,200 depositions, and a quarter of the $1 billion fund the U.S. put up.   See my Will the Post 9/11 World be a Post-Tort World?, Penn State Law Review (2007)

Another story that is missed is how low these cases settled.   As the New York Post! pointed out:

At stake is a $1 billion taxpayer fund and as much as $3 billion in liability-insurance coverage, which includes the Port Authority's $600 million and policies held by WTC contractors.

The WTC Captive Insurance Co., a nonprofit governed by Mayor Bloomberg, has managed a $1 billion fund. The money was awarded by Congress to pay claims stemming from the Ground Zero cleanup.

The fund spent $275 million between 2004 and Dec. 31, 2009, on defense lawyers and administrative costs, records obtained by The Post show.

 So contrary to the tale so many tell - the defense lawyers drove up costs - and took no cut.  the plaintiffs' lawyers took risk - and got cut.  And if it was a billion dollar fund and the plaintiffs split $615 million, the defense took $275 million - where is the other $110 million?  Did it go to Medicare and Medicaid liens?  That I need to investigate.