Suing over 9/11 cleanup

last updated 8 January 2015

New York

Hundreds of people who helped remove rubble from the World Trade Center filed a lawsuit last week saying that their bosses didn’t do enough to protect them from dust, asbestos, and toxic smoke. About 800 former recovery workers want Larry Silverstein, who holds the lease on the complex, and four construction companies to pay billions of dollars and set up a system to monitor their health problems, which they say include tumors and severe breathing difficulties. Lawyer David Worby said the workers represented “a second wave of casualties” from the Sept. 11 attacks. A spokesman for Silverstein said the federal government had handled the cleanup, and that Silverstein “had no control” over it.