Lawyers representing most of the more than 10,000 plaintiffs suing New York City and its contractors for illnesses resulting from the response and cleanup after the 9/11 terror attacks have patched up their differences over sharing costs. Lawyers with Sullivan Papain Block McGrath & Cannavo, representing 689 plaintiffs, mostly firefighters, had charged co-liaison counsel Worby Groner Edelman & Napoli Bern with charging common benefit costs that should not be incurred by Sullivan and other firms, including public relations fees and Web site design. Worby fired back by claiming it had done most of the work in the litigation and rejoining that Sullivan had tried to pass on common benefit costs to Worby and other firms that were unjustified.
The two plaintiffs’ firms were set to square off at a hearing yesterday afternoon before Southern District Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein, who is presiding over a still-to-be-finalized $712.5 million settlement in the cases. But instead the firms submitted a stipulation to the judge, with Sullivan agreeing to pay 6.4 percent of common benefit expenses for a few categories, including expenses for Special Masters Aaron Twesrki and James Henderson Jr.; and Worby agreeing not to charge their own clients or other firms for public relations and attorney consultants. There are a total of 10,763 plaintiffs on the eligible list for the settlement. They have until Nov. 8 to decide whether to opt-in, with the settlement requiring 95 percent participation to become effective.
