The plaintiffs are seeking compensatory damages for pain andsuffering and economic loss. Some are asking for medicalmonitoring; others are considering punitive damages, as well.

The defendants contend that a link between the plaintiffs'illnesses and their exposure at Ground Zero cannot be proven. Theyalso contend that some of the plaintiffs' claims arefraudulent.

The cases, which involve some 90 different defendant entities,have drawn the attention of hundreds of lawyers and yieldedmillions of pages of legal documents. If the cases go to trial,jurors will be faced with determining the culpability of thesepublic and private organizations against a group of verysympathetic plaintiffs, primarily firefighters, police officers,construction workers, and other first-responders.

Sample Cases Chosen
Given their complexity, the cases have been consolidated (however,they are still being considered separately; they have not beencombined into a class-action lawsuit). Rather, the parties and thecourt have selected a group of sample cases to bring to trial.These initial 12 cases are scheduled to go to trial May 16 inManhattan.

Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein of the United States District Courtfor the Southern District of New York, who is overseeing thelitigation, recently announced that a detailed settlement plan some70 pages long has been drafted. He told The New York Times that,"The parties are looking toward possible group settlements, whileothers may still be settled individually."

Legal experts appear not to be surprised that a settlement islooming. Most have voiced the opinion that the cases would never goto trial. Now it is just a matter of what price will be paid toresolve the issue short of a trial.

Changing the Rules
New York City also isreaching out to the U.S. Congress for help in resolving thesituation by supporting a bill to reopen the September 11th VictimCompensation Fund of 2001. Under the original terms of the federalfund, rescue workers who developed symptoms after the filingdeadline or who were not working at Ground Zero within four days ofthe attack were excluded.

In an address to Congress in March 2009, Michael A. Cardozo,corporation counsel of the City of New York, asked members to"re-open the Victim Compensation Fund, thereby providing a fast,fair, and efficient way to compensate the Ground Zero workers andarea residents who demonstrate that they were injured as a resultof the terrorist attack." Speaking in support of H.R. 847, Cardozostated that the bill "would broaden the existing limitation onliability for damages arising from the response to the terroristattack... ." He noted that according to the present parameters ofthe fund, "...to be eligible for the fund, a claimant had to havebeen present at Ground Zero within four days of the attack. Andclaims had to be filed by December 2003. Because of theselimitations, there are now many rescue and recovery workers, not tomention those in the community, who report injuries, but have nooption for compensation other than litigation. Almost 11,000 ofthose people have sued New York City and/or its contractors. Mostof them say they did not develop symptoms of their injury untillong after the filing period for the original VCF passed. Also, anumber of them were not present at Ground Zero within four days ofthe attack and were therefore not eligible for compensation fromthe fund."

The bill is currently assigned to the House Subcommittee on theConstitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties Discharged. Itscompanion bill in the Senate, S.1334, has been read twice andreferred to the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, andPensions.