As work goes on as before at the Pentagon, the new buildings go up at Ground Zero and flowers bloom on the field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, most people focus on physical recovery occurring in the 10 years after September 11, 2001. Many fail to consider what is going on behind the scenes. Among other things, over 12,000 wrongful death lawsuits have been filed. In addition to the families of the victims, plaintiffs in the cases include cleanup workers, insurers, businesses, first responders and property owners. There are numerous defendants in these cases as well. Lawsuits have been filed against contractors managing recovery at Ground Zero, the city of New York and of course the airlines involved in the crashes.
Most of the cases were grouped into four "master cases" and were handled by the same judge at the federal courthouse in Manhattan. Out of the four master cases three have for the most part been settled. Only one wrongful death trial is scheduled at this point. It has been brought by the mother of a man who was a passenger on United flight 175. That airplane hit the south tower. It is not likely that many more cases will reach the trial stage.
The focus in the wrongful death lawsuits against the airlines was twofold. The first issue was whether something could have been done to avoid the attacks. Next, assuming that the airlines could have prevented the attacks, did they meet their duty in screening the planes' passengers? As is probably expected, information on the security used by the government was somewhat difficult to obtain.
While the events of September 11, 2001 were certainly more catastrophic as a whole that the average fatal plane, train or car crash, plaintiffs in the 9/11 cases that have settled were looking for the same closure many do in cases involving fewer victims. As is fairly common in wrongful death cases, in addition to the financial compensation, many plaintiffs were looking to hold someone or some company accountable for the events. Though they were able to express their feelings to individuals from the airlines, they may have been left feeling a bit empty since all of the hijackers, the people most at fault for the crashes, themselves perished.
Source: Reuters, "September 11 lawyers reflect on decade of legal twists," Joseph Ax, Sept. 10, 2011