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The following is excerpted from

After: How America Confronted the September 12 Era

by Steven Brill.

Tuesday, December 25, 2001 (Pages 289, 290)

Ken Feinberg was happy to get away with his family to Jamaica for Christmas, figuring it would be his last escape for a while from all the sadness he was somehow supposed to compensate. He didn't get to escape completely. On Sunday his three college-age kids got into a good-natured argument with a New York football fan. The Feinberg kids favored the Redskins, and this guy, a New Yorker, liked the Giants. Somehow, the New Yorker figured out from the kids who their father was, and now, on Christmas morning, Feinberg found himself meeting with Michael Barasch, an ambitious forty-six-year-old plaintiffs lawyer with an office in lower Manhattan, who specialized in bringing suits on behalf of firemen.
Barasch, who featured a "World Trade Center Legal Update," on his website, told Feinberg he had now amassed nearly 1,000 cases involving what he called "the real silent secret" -- firemen who had sustained lung injuries during the rescue and recovery effort at Ground Zero. The injuries ranged from the relatively minor to complete inability to do the basics of life, such as walking upstairs or lifting a child. Barasch figured the damages ranged from $50,000 into the millions.
Barasch explained that as the law required, earlier in the month, he had filed notices of his intention to sue the city, because the men had been placed in harm's way and not given the proper protective masks. He even had one of the notices with him; it cited "contact with dangerous levels of toxins, PCB's, benzene, lead, chromium, copper, asbestos, sulfur dioxide, fiberglass, and other toxic and carcinogenic chemicals." But now, Barasch continued as Feinberg listened patiently, he was thinking that the victims fund might be a better alternative. Which of course it would be, because the city's liability for everything involving September 11 had been capped at $350 million. Also the city was known as a tough litigant.


 What did Feinberg think?
Make an appointment and show me some sample cases, Feinberg replied.
With the death count from September 11 having dropped steadily in the last two months to about 3,000 from the 5,000 or 6,000 that had been estimated when the victims compensation law had been passed, Feinberg had been sure he'd be able to come in well under the $6 billion ceiling that he and budget director Daniels had danced around in their initial conversation.
And serious injuries (also covered by the fund) were always thought to be limited to a handful. Now, this plaintiff 's lawyer was saying there might be a thousand cases he'd never thought about, cases involving hero firemen, no less, who could not be easily denied. Was he right? Could there be more categories of victims like this?

Wednesday, September 11, 2002 (pages 585-586)
Feinberg spent much of the day preparing for two more test run sessions. One scheduled for tomorrow was with Michael Barasch, the personal injury lawyer whom Feinberg had met over his Christmas vacation in Jamaica. Barasch had claimed to have 1,000 firemen clients, whose respiratory systems had been damaged by the air at Ground Zero during the cleanup. Feinberg was surprised to find that the documentation on many of the sample cases that Barasch planned to go over with him looked pretty good. This did look like a large number of legitimate extra claims that he would have to deal with.

Epilogue,January 2003 (page 603)
Feinberg has also agreed, at the strong urging of Mayor Michael Bloomberg's administration, to receive applications from Michael Barasch related to the firemen's breathing disorders that Barasch now says are likely to number in "the several hundreds."

Reprinted with permission.