New York City is not immune from liability in 8,000 cases accusing it and others of failing to properly protect workers cleaning up the World Trade Center site after the 2001 terrorist attacks, a federal appeals court panel suggested recently.
The city’s lawyer, James Tyrrell, argued that his client, contractors and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which owns the site, are not liable for respiratory illnesses and other injuries suffered by thousands of people who cleaned up the site. Tyrrell cited a 1951 state law protecting municipalities from lawsuits for actions they take responding to attacks.
The three-judge panel, however, repeatedly suggested it believed the defendants are not entirely immune from lawsuits and questioned whether the city even had a right to appeal the issue at this stage of the litigation.
Lawyers said it appeared it could take three to four more years for the lawsuits to reach trial.
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