Suffering Ground Zero worker finally gets the workers' compensation benefits to which he is entitled

Monday, 08 June 2009

Daniel Arrigo, a flagman who worked on the cleanup of the World Trade Center site, is finally receiving workers' compensation benefits after he and his New York workers' compensation attorney battled with his insurance carrier for more than a year, the Daily News reports.

Mr. Arrigo developed numerous respiratory illnesses after working at the World Trade Center site for four months while inhaling toxic dust, fumes and vapors. He finally had to stop working in 2008, after "he could no longer tie his boots."

He now takes 10 separate medications and requires an oxygen machine to sleep at night.

An obvious candidate for workers' compensation, Mr. Arrigo hired a New York workers' compensation lawyer and put in his initial claim in January, 2008. Three months later, Mr. Arrigo and his lawyers were already entrenched in a battle with the insurance carrier, Zurich, and Mr. Arrigo had still not received the $400 a week in compensation that two separate judges had ordered.

Zurich made Mr. Arrigo and his New York workers' compensation lawyers jump through hoop after hoop to get the compensation to which Mr. Arrigo is entitled. For 10 months, the carrier contended it was not responsible for Mr. Arrigo's compensation. When that failed, it initiated the lengthy process of cross-examining Mr. Arrigos' doctors, a procedure that can take months.

Finally, a year and a half after filing his claim, Mr. Arrigo is receiving compensation. In the 18 months since he opened his case Mr. Arrigo's family lost their house and had to live off of his meager Social Security disability payments and pension.

The misery Mr. Arrigo, his wife and his three children experienced during those 18 months is inestimable, but it is not atypical. The tactics Zurich used against Mr. Arrigo's claim are the same that other workers' compensation carriers use all the time. In such a hostile system as New York's, a workers' compensation attorney is often more a necessity than a luxury.

[ Daily News]