NEW YORK — A federal judge Friday rejected a legal settlement that would have given at least $575 million to people sickened by ash and dust from the World Trade Center, saying the deal shortchanged 10,000 ground zero workers whom he called heroes.
“In my judgment, this settlement is not enough,” said U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein, 76, who delivered his pronouncement to a stunned gallery at a federal courthouse in Manhattan.
The jurist said he feared that police officers, firefighters and other laborers who cleared rubble after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks were being pushed into signing a deal few of them understood.
Under the terms of the settlement, workers had been given just 90 days to say yes or no to a deal that would have assigned them payments based on a point system that Hellerstein said was complicated enough to make a Talmudic scholar’s head spin.
“I will not preside over a settlement that is based on fear or ignorance,” he said.
Of the proposed settlement of $575 million to $657 million, workers stood to get amounts ranging from a few thousand dollars to more than $1 million.
Hellerstein said the deal should be richer. Too much of it would be eaten up by legal fees, he said. A third or more of the money set aside for the workers was expected to go to their attorneys.
Hellerstein, who presides over all federal court litigation related to the terrorist attacks, ripped into the agreement after hearing several ground zero responders speak tearfully of their illnesses and after receiving letters and phone calls from others expressing confusion about the deal.
Christine LaSala, president of WTC Captive Insurance Co., a special entity created by Congress to represent the city, said lawyers would “try to find a way forward.”
