9/11 Litigation: NY state law extends time for filing a notice of claim

Governor Patterson recently signed a bill that extends the time for filing a notice of claim against a municipality by one year for claims by 9/11 rescue and recovery workers.  As the New York Law Journal reports, this could expand the number of claims pending before Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein (S.D.N.Y) from 11,000 to nearly 14,000.  Although the bill is a New York State law, the bill will likely direct the cases to Judge Hellerstein's courtroom because of a 2001 federal statute, the ATSSSA (49 U.S.C. 40101 et seq.), which grants the Southern District of New York exclusive jurisdiction over cases arising out of the events of September 11th.*

RJE

*By way of shameless self-promotion, I have written extensively about the procedural aspects of the September 11th Litigation here and here.