(Angel Chevrestt)
World Trade Center rescue and cleanup workers with post-9/11 cancer could still get far less compensation than responders with respiratory disease, a snub that may spur many to reject a new proposed settlement, they say.
Those disabled by severe asthma may collect as much as $1 million, but the estimated maximum payment for those with most tumor cancers is $25,000, for lung and other respiratory cancers $100,000, and for blood cancers like leukemia $320,000.
“Millions for asthma? They can have my cancer and I’ll take their breathing problems,” one worker fumed.
Under a new deal reached last week, Ground Zero ironworker Brad Bonaparte, 48, recently hit with advanced esophageal cancer, could get $18,750 to $25,000, minus a 25 percent lawyer’s fee, instead of $6,500 under the old deal.
“It doesn’t make sense for him to take it, it’s so little money,” said his lawyer Greg Cannata.
Cannata said he’ll advise Bonaparte, who is undergoing chemotherapy and has two young kids, to wait for a pending bill to reopen the federal 9/11 Victim Compensation Fund with more than $5 billion for sick workers and others.
Payments by that fund for cancer linked to 9/11 and other serious diseases would be “much higher” than the settlement, said Jim Melius, adminstrator of the New York State Laborers’ Health and Safety Fund. “They could be in the millions of dollars, based on the severity of the illness, loss of income and damage to the family.”
Melius said he hope workers have a “better choice.” New York Congressmembers predict the James Zadroga bill will pass by September 11, the ninth anniversary of 9/11. The deadline for 95 percent of nearly 11,000 workers to accept the settlement is September 30. The bill would bar compensation to those who take the settlement.
Even those with moderate asthma and lung ailments, because the link to Ground Zero is less in dispute than cancer, would fare better than the dying Bonaparte. Office cleaner Waldemar Balcer, 58, who can only work part-time, would get close to $175,000. And now he won’t have to repay $50,000 in workers comp benefits, and remain eligible for payments for medical treatment and lost wages.
The cancer victims — more than 800 in the case — are outraged that their lawyers may now cash in after giving up a fight to prove that Ground Zero carcinogens triggered their illness.
The lawyers agreed to lower their fee from 33.3 percent to 25 percent. But with the pot increased to $625 million if 95 percent of workers “opt in,” and $712.5 for 100 percent, the lawyers can take home up to $178.1 million, plus millios for expenses. Lawyers for the city have already bagged more than $200 million.
“The compensation for lawyers should not exceed the payments for those who worked down at the World Trade Center, got sick and died,” said FDNY firefighter Kenny Specht, 41, who was forced to retire with thyroid cancer.
Several workers with cancer said they are looking for new lawyers to take their cases to trial.