New York extends filing deadline for 9/11 rescue workers seeking compensation

New York state has reopened the window for workers and volunteers seeking compensation for lost wages and medical benefits arising from their involvement in the rescue, recovery and clean-up at the World Trade Center after the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001.

A law signed by the Democratic governor, Andrew Cuomo, on Sunday, the 15th anniversary of the attacks that caused the collapse of the twin towers in lower Manhattan, extends the claims filing deadline until 11 September 2018. It lapsed two years ago.

“We still feel the pain and the loss like it was yesterday, and the thousands of brave men and women who stepped up in our darkest hour are still grappling with the after-effects,” Cuomo said at the signing in Manhattan.

The law also authorizes new claims for related injuries and illnesses since the attacks through this year’s anniversary for workers’ compensation, disability and accidental death benefits that were disallowed because of late filing.

This weekend, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) at the time of 9/11, former New Jersey governor Christine Todd Whitman, told the Guardian she was sorry for the agency’s advice in the aftermath of the attacks that the air around Ground Zero in New York was safe to breathe.

“Whatever we got wrong, we should acknowledge and people should be helped,” she said, adding that she still “feels awful” about the tragedy and its aftermath.

“I’m very sorry that people are sick,” she said. “I’m very sorry that people are dying and if the EPA and I in any way contributed to that, I’m sorry. We did the very best we could at the time with the knowledge we had.”

Dr Jim Melius, a member of the advocacy group 9/11 Health Watch, said: “Within the next five years we will be at the point where more people have died from World Trade Center-related illnesses than died from the immediate impact of the attacks.”

Almost 3,000 people were killed on 9/11 in attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon outside Washington, and in the crash of a fourth hijacked airliner in a field in Pennsylvania.

Melius, who is also a doctor at the New York State Laborers Union, an adviser to the White House on worker health and chair of the steering committee overseeing the government health program for 9/11 responders, added: “There are a lot of people who are very, very ill with lung disease who will see at least 10 years taken from their normal life span.

“We are already seeing many more premature deaths occurring, and among younger people, from the cancers. There is going to be a new generation of widows and widowers.”

At the bill signing on Sunday, Sal Turturici, who attended in a wheelchair, said of the extension: “It’s going to help a lot of people who are in harm’s way right now. They’re on the end of losing their benefits because they’re running out of time or running out of any grants or any kind of time to get to extend their pay, so they’re falling off the payroll.”

Turturici’s wife, a fire department paramedic like her husband, said he was diagnosed on 4 October with terminal cancer. Wendi Turturici said Cuomo had given her hope that she can take care of their three young children and give her husband peace.

Thousands of people who aided in the rescue and recovery effort were found to have respiratory ailments and other health problems in the years after the attacks. Cancer has remained the biggest fear for people exposed to the gritty soot at the site.

New York extends filing deadline for 9/11 rescue workers seeking compensation

NHS sounds compensation alarm right after £120,000 attorney bill for £5,000 claim

A third of the £1.1bn paid out by the NHS in compensation final year was handed to attorneys, with one company submitting a £121,700 bill following a £5,000 declare.

The value to the taxpayer is expected to rise to £1.4bn next year, with the NHS conceding that it faced an “increasingly hard task” in managing the degree of payouts.

In its annual report, the NHS Litigation Authority (NHS LA) added that the behaviour of numerous law companies was leading to concern, with massive bills getting submitted and a large quantity of unjustified claims becoming created.

Ian Dilks, the chair of the NHS LA, said: “The fees of litigation are placing a burden on NHS finances of a magnitude that was never ever imagined when the NHS LA was established.”

Associated: Clampdown on lawyers overcharging NHS in clinical negligence situations

The NHS LA also raised worries about the coalition government’s overhaul of legal help, saying it had “influenced the behaviour of some claimant lawyers” and led to growing legal costs in numerous situations.

The authority highlighted one case the place an NHS trust agreed to pay out £5,000 for the failure to diagnose a patient’s tumour on the kidney. Even so, right after the provide of £5,000 was accepted, the patient’s solicitors claimed expenses of £121,700.

More evaluation of the bill revealed that the company was claiming a price of £400 an hour, despite the fact that a important sum of the operate was carried out by unqualified staff. The company then claimed a one hundred% achievement charge on leading of this, raising the hourly charge to £800.

The NHS ultimately had the declare struck out.

In yet another situation, the NHS agreed to spend £2,000 to settle a declare. The claimant’s solicitors then presented a bill for £53,529.60 – even though the ultimate amount paid by the NHS was reduced.

The report explained that it was “impossible to justify” the increasing quantity of situations exactly where substantially much more funds was billed by claimant solicitors for legal expenses than was paid in compensation.

Due to law firms’ actions, the legal charges of smaller claims have risen substantially. Where sufferers get damages of up to £100,000, the typical claimant’s legal expenses are now much more than 50% of the total payment.

By tough charges, expenses have been reduced by an average of 33%. The Department of Health is currently thinking about programs to cap the fees charged by attorneys in clinical negligence claims.

Connected: Legal support overhaul – what the adjustments will indicate for you

After the introduction of the legal support legislation, the NHS LA anticipated to see a fall in the quantity of circumstances. Alternatively, it discovered that solicitors had been finding other ways to enhance costs.

“We are seeing an escalating variety of plainly excessive and disproportionate costs expenses, the presentation of which coincides with the banning of success charges and the reduction of the recoverability of the full value of following-the-occasion (ATE) insurance coverage against the defendant,” mentioned the report.

The NHS LA additional that it continued to obtain a significant amount of unjustified claims, generating no payments at all for far more than 46% of clinical claims.

The NHS LA’s chief executive, Helen Vernon, warned that it was turning out to be more difficult to make sure that patients acquired fair compensation even though reducing the inappropriate claims produced on the NHS.

“The emergence of non-expert attorneys coupled with extreme claims for legal charges by some firms has essential a modify in approach,” she mentioned in the report.

In order to end unjustified claims, the NHS LA is tough far more claims for expenses and contesting far more situations in court. The quantity of instances in which no compensation is paid has nearly doubled in five years, from two,533 instances to 4,909.

In 2014-15, the authority mentioned that it had saved much more than £1.2bn for the NHS by rejecting claims that had no merit.

NHS sounds compensation alarm right after £120,000 attorney bill for £5,000 claim

Thalidomide victims launch substantial court battle for compensation

Thalidomide tablets. The drug was utilised by pregnant females to ward off morning sickness in between 1958 and 1961. Photograph: Reuters

Thalidomide victims have mounted a new bid for compensation from the drug’s producer and distributor a lot more than 50 many years right after they were born.

Papers have been filed at the high court on behalf of eight people whose mothers took the anti-morning sickness drug when pregnant in the late 1950s and early 1960s, law firm Slater and Gordon said.

They are in search of compensation from the drug’s German maker Grünenthal, and Diageo, which now owns the drug’s United kingdom distributor, Distillers Co (Biochemicals).

Lorry driver Brian Davies, 53, from Gwynedd, Wales, who was left with deformed feet, is a single of these in search of compensation, having been refused underneath a 1970s strategy since his arms had been not affected.

The father of two said: “It really is a disgrace that so numerous people have been denied justice in this way.

“In my eyes it was basically the drug businesses hunting to conserve funds and ignoring the duty of care they have to individuals whose lives they have ruined.

“Ever considering that I was a child I have missed out on each day pleasures, like enjoying football with friends or swimming, factors other folks consider for granted.

“Every day I am in soreness and each day is a struggle. I hope that now we finally get the justice that we have been demanding for so numerous many years.”

Amongst 1958 and 1961 thalidomide was utilised by expectant mothers to handle symptoms of morning sickness.

It was originally prescribed as a “wonder drug” for morning sickness, headaches, coughs, insomnia and colds.

Thalidomide infants usually suffered missing or deformed limbs and intense shortening of arms and legs, but the drug also triggered malformations of the eyes and ears, genitals, heart, kidneys and digestive tract.

By the time safety fears led to it currently being pulled from sale thousands of babies worldwide had been impacted.

According to survivors’ charity Thalidomide Uk, there are 455 victims in the United kingdom but it is estimated about forty% of victims died before their very first birthday.

In 2012 Grünenthal apologised for the drug for the very first time, with chief executive Harald Stock saying: “We have been silent and we are really sorry for that.”

Final year Diageo paid A$ 89m (£49m) to just in excess of 100 further Australians broken by the drug, in a deal that led to a claim towards Grünenthal being discontinued.

Fraser Whitehead, a attorney at Slater and Gordon, explained: “Grünenthal and Distillers have constantly claimed that the thalidomide disaster was an unavoidable tragedy and that they did every little thing expected of drug firms at the time. Our investigation has demonstrated that is nonsense.

“The two organizations knew their drug was leading to severe nerve harm and both have been explicitly warned of the likelihood thalidomide might result in significant malformations. Nevertheless the drug was left on the market for several months afterwards.

“It is time individuals accountable are last but not least held to account for the blunders of the past. Grünenthal, in specific, has accomplished minor to make good the immense damage that it has accomplished and it has to accept accountability for people affected in the United kingdom.”

Thalidomide victims launch substantial court battle for compensation

Thalidomide victims get $89m compensation

An $ 89m compensation payment for individuals left with birth defects after their mothers took thalidomide has been authorized.

A lot more than one hundred Australian and New Zealand victims will be compensated in the landmark settlement soon after the Victorian supreme court signed off on the settlement on Friday.

Lawyer Peter Gordon, acting for the victims, informed the court the settlement was a honest and compassionate resolution.

He stated there were no objectors and no objections.

“No one particular has submitted any complaint,“ Gordon stated.

The $ 89m will be paid by the drug’s distributor, Diageo, with thalidomide’s producer Grunenthal not integrated in the agreement.

The settlement ends a long compensation battle by the thalidomide victims, numerous of whom had been born with missing or shortened limbs.

Thalidomide, a drug to counter morning sickness, was withdrawn from sale in 1961.

The drug was distributed in Australia and New Zealand about 1960 and 1961 by Distillers, which became portion of Diageo in 1997.

Thalidomide victims get $89m compensation