The suit was filed against WTC Captive Insurance Company, Mayor Bloomberg and others for "the continued waste and misuse of the billion dollar fund allocated by Congress to pay for the workers' medical monitoring, medical treatment and compensation."
"The Captive and its management have spent over $74 million dollars of the heroes' money on so-called 'loss adjustment fees,' including over $45 million in legal fees, to fight the ground zero workers' claims, but they have not paid a single dollar to a Ground Zero worker who has become ill from exposure to toxic substances at the WTC and related sites," charged attorney Marc Jay Bern.
The company, whose board of directors is appointed by the mayor, has long maintained that the fund was established "to cover debris removal claims against the City and its contractors."
However, New York Senator Charles E. Schumer, who helped secure the funds for the WTC Insurance Company, charged in a letter on July 31, 2007, that the money, in fact, was not being used as intended. "No one involved with the establishment of this fund expected it to behave like a stingy, bottom-line obsessed corporation," he said. "Rather, it was created out of recognition that neither the City nor the contractors were responsible for the attacks and that those who were injured while working at Ground Zero deserved full and swift compensation."
The workers have already filed a class-action lawsuit claiming the toxic dust from the World Trade Center site gave them serious, possibly fatal diseases. Tuesday's suit seeks monetary compensation.
Roy Winnick, a spokesman for WTC Captive, told the Associated Press that he could not yet comment on the claim until the lawsuit.
A report released last year by Mt. Sinai Medical Center determined that approximately 70 percent of ground zero workers continued to suffer from respiratory disease years after the cleanup and that many of their ailments have only worsened with time. Dr. Robin Herbert, co-director of Mount Sinai's World Trade Center Worker and Volunteer Medical Screening Program, reported, "our patients are sick, and they will need ongoing care for the rest of their lives."
The law firm representing the workers, Worby, Groner and Napoli Bern, LLP, are also representing the plaintiff's in pending litigation against the City of New York and its contractors for allegedly failing to provide adequate respirators and other protective equipment during the clean-up.
