@William: I would need a client with standing to object, and even then, I’d need a basis to object. Your complaint is with your federal legislator, who gave New York City a free billion dollars to play with to litigate and settle the case. Given that the City had already spent $200 million on defense lawyers, and given that there’s no loser-pays rule, the settlement is perhaps the best the City can do, especially given the political demands for settlement. (When I testified before Congress twice on the issue, I saw no political will not to settle, and plenty of legislators ready to throw more money at the issue.) I haven’t analyzed the settlement to see how they get around the Amchem problem.

Since the work was outdoors where the air continuously refreshed itself, since great efforts were made to provide workers with respirators if they wanted to use them, since none of the monitoring instruments at the site found any meaningful levels of toxins (One reading at one time is claimed.), and since there were no problems with the search dogs at the site; it stains common sense that any of the 5,000 claims are valid. None of the payments is justified.

I wonder if Ted Frank can object to this settlement. He did a great job on the Grand Theft Auto Case.