The 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on Thursday that a lower court has to reconsider its decision to dismiss a death benefits lawsuit against New York City, which was brought by a widow who says her husband died because of an illness he acquired after helping with the cleanup effort at the World Trade Center site after the 9/11 terrorist attack.
A lower court dismissed the suit brought by Cheryl Dukes against the New York City Employees’ Retirement System because of a jurisdictional dispute about Dukes’ residence. The Southern District of New York dismissed Dukes’ case because the Eastern District of New York had tossed her case thinking that she did not live within the Eastern District’s jurisdiction.
But the federal appeals court said the Southern District court did not determine where she lived — Pennsylvania or New York — when she filed the case, and still needs to decide where she lived and how that matters before dismissing her claims.
Since the district court never determined whether a federal law governing damages claims arising out of the 9/11 attacks applied to Dukes’ case, the federal appeals court directed the lower district court to review that too. The district court will now decide whether the federal law covers Dukes’ claim involving the New York City pension scheme.
Ralph Dukes died in 2007, and Cheryl Dukes’ litigation has been ongoing in the courts for several years.
