A White Plains law firm that risked taking on the cases of sick and illness-fearing recovery and cleanup workers at the World Trade Center disaster site could be only weeks away from a multimillion-dollar payday after eight years of legal work in the settled mass tort case.
Worby Groner Edelman L.L.P., a personal injury firm headquartered in White Plains, joined with Napoli Bern L.L.P., of New York City and Long Island, to represent in federal court more than 10,000 plaintiffs seeking payments from New York City and its contractors for exposure to what attorneys described as “a toxic cocktail of dust and smoke” at “The Pile” ”“ disaster responders”™ term for the Ground Zero site. They maintained hazardous particles have caused or could cause a variety of respiratory disorders, cancers and other serious or fatal illnesses.
The plaintiffs included firefighters, police officers, emergency medical technicians, construction workers and volunteers who were among the estimated 70,000 responders to the terrorist attacks 10 years ago.
A settlement reached about one year ago gives claimants up to $712.5 million in compensation from the WTC Captive Insurance Co. Inc., a nonprofit company created with a $1-billion grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to insure New York City and its contractors and subcontractors against claims in the aftermath of the 9/11 disaster. Additional settlements last year in related mass tort claims against the Port Authority and contractors for barge hauling of toxic WTC debris and debris handling at the Fresh Kills landfill on Staten Island added about $104 million in compensation.
Once the agreed-to payments from the city”™s insurer are allocated by a court-appointed neutral party, the plaintiffs”™ attorneys at Worby Groner Edelman & Napoli Bern L.L.P. will collect a 25 percent contingency fee. The fee, reduced in final settlement negotiations last year from the standard 33 percent, will amount to more than $200 million.
The attorneys”™ percentage does not apply to WTC Captive”™s premium payments for the $100,000 cancer insurance policies for workers who show no symptoms of illness but fear a later onset of blood cell and other cancers caused by exposure to Ground Zero toxins.
“When all is said and done, it will be an $850 million to $950 million settlement,” said David E. Worby, senior partner at Worby Groner Edelman L.L.P. who founded the firm in 1981. Cash payments to responders will range from $8,000 to $2 million, he said.
Worby said the fast-mushrooming case began in late 2003, when he was approached by John Walcott, a detective in the New York Police Department and hockey coach at Fox Lane High School in Bedford, which Worby”™s children attended. Walcott had been diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia, a blood-cell cancer the detective believed was linked to his police work handling WTC debris at the Fresh Kills landfill. He sought the lawyer”™s help in obtaining disability benefits from the city.
Worby sent a letter to the city on the detective”™s behalf and also filed a notice of claim in court. Walcott”™s detective partner then asked Worby to represent him in a court claim.
As word of the lawyer”™s work spread, Worby said he started filing notices of claim for other Ground Zero responders. “All of a sudden the phone didn”™t stop ringing” from responders sick with respiratory disorders.
Though a highly successful personal injury lawyer, “I had never handled a mass tort case before,” said Worby. “They”™re very complicated and they”™re very expensive ”“ and we”™re a small firm.”
His boutique firm joined resources with Napoli Bern, a firm with  experience and a record of success, including a $500 million settlement with a diet-drug manufacturer, in mass tort and class action lawsuits.
“We took a case that no one else wanted,” said Worby. For mass torts, it was “the most complex case ever.”
In U.S. Southern District Court in Manhattan, the WTC responders”™ attorneys “faced a daunting uphill battle against the notion that there should be immunity” for the city and its contractors because the cleanup operations were carried out in a declared emergency. “That was a huge issue,” said Worby. If Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein ruled favorably for the city”™s immunity defense, “The case would be tossed out.”
Hellerstein postponed the scheduled start of the trial last year as an amended settlement seemed close. He called the terms of the final settlement “a very good deal” for plaintiffs.
Worby said the federal judge told the plaintiffs”™ attorneys when the settlement was reached: “You guys risked tens of millions of dollars on a case no one else wanted.”
Worby estimated their legal team incurred $45 million to $50 million in costs without remuneration in the lengthy and complex case.
At Worby Groner Edeleman, “We”™ve had negative cash flow for eight years” because of the case. “There are not many law firms that could survive eight years of negative cash flow and be out that kind of money. Who”™s going to risk that kind of work?
“There have probably been 50 to 60 lawyers, many of them working 24/7” on the case, he said. His firm”™s managing partner, William Groner, “has been working 24/7 on this the last three years.”
In a few weeks, “This will hopefully be all wrapped up,” Worby said. “Of the 10,000, there”™s just a few hundred persons that there are still some issues about” for the court-appointed firm disbursing payments.
Once those are resolved, the law firm”™s hefty paycheck should be in the mail.
