Airlines were protected from 9/11 suits, but folks on ground at WTC got shortchanged.

Airlines were protected from 9/11 suits, but folks on ground at WTC got shortchanged.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2010/03/16/2010-03-16_revive_the_airlines_were_protected_from_lawsuits_but.html
Michael Daly
Tuesday, March 16th 2010

Just 11 days after the attack on the World Trade Center, when the ruins were still smoldering and we were just beginning to recover our dead, Congress rushed to protect the airlines from being sued.

That's right. Congress saw the footage of the hijacked airliners flying into the towers and those poor trapped souls jumping and thousands more pulverized by the twin collapses and one of its foremost concerns was this:

"The families might sue the airlines!"


The airlines must have been all the more concerned because they had for decades been resisting advice to secure the cockpits against intruders.
El Al had done so and nobody ever commandeered one of their planes.

The American carriers had decided it would cost too much money, and the result was 9/11. The airlines would have faced billions in suits had their friends in Congress not quickly pushed through the Air Transportation Safety and Stabilization Act.

What should have been called the Airline Protection Act barred 9/11 victims and their survivors from suing the airlines.

Instead, people would seek what they needed at a September 11 Victim Compensation Fund that the act established to make the whole thing politically viable.

As it happened, it all worked out for the best.

The fund proved to be responsive and efficient and fair.

And, lest you think badly of all lawyers, hundreds of them volunteered to assist free of charge. They were called "attorneys of mercy" with absolutely no irony.

Then the fund expired in 2003.

Mayor Bloomberg pressed Congress to revive it.

The city's representatives in Washington did their best.

But it was not like a big special interest like the airlines was in jeopardy.

It was just a bunch of New York cops and firefighters and construction workers suffering illnesses as varied as the toxins in The Pit.

And there was no longer any political necessity to protect them.

So the effort to revive the victim fund went nowhere.

Instead, Congress allocated $1 billion for the city and its contractors to resolve the suits that were now the victims' only redress.

The defense was led by the firm Patton Boggs, whose home page has the words "POWER BASE" in huge letters. The firm's head "toxic tort" guy, James Tyrrell, once represented the manufacturer of Agent Orange in a suit involving 2.4 million Vietnam war veterans. He has also defended the makers of defective breast implants and of a pregnancy drug that gave women cancer.

The total defense bill in this 9/11 case has exceeded $200 million. There have been reports of hourly fees exceeding $580 and a "business dinner" tab of as much as $1,250.

The plaintiffs' lawyers are working with no guarantee of payment but figure it would be only right to take a third of the $575 million to $657 million settlement proposed last week, plus expenses, of course.

Compare all that to the "attorneys of mercy" during the Victim Fund, back in that time when an attack of pure evil brought out the very best in us.

If Congress wants to bring some of that goodness back, it can still revive the fund.

We could call them politicians of mercy.

Hey, and the airlines will still be protected.

mdaly@nydailynews.com