Metro

Ruling boo$ts 9/11 responders

The state’s highest court has ruled the city wrongly denied World Trade Center disability pensions to three cancer-stricken cops, paving the way for hundreds of ill 9/11 first responders to get similar benefits.

“Now many of us in the same situation can get a fair shake,” said Eddie Maldonado, who retired because of a cancerous leg tumor.

The city argued that his cancer and those of Officers Karen Bitchatchi and Frank Macri had started before 9/11. Bitchatchi spent 60 hours on the pile and developed rectal cancer. Macri spent 350 hours at Ground Zero and the Fresh Kills remains site and died of lung cancer in 2007. His wife denied WTC survivor’s benefit because pension docs said his cancer had started before 9/11 because of how fast it grew. The officers are now eligible for pensions worth three-quarters of their salary that is state and city tax free, rather than half their salary that is taxable.

He said he noticed a growth on his left leg in the summer of 2001. By November, it had developed into a softball-size tumor, he said.

The court ruled that the city would have to prove a cancer was not caused by exposure to Ground Zero when it denies a claim.

Attorneys for the officers said the cancers had been exacerbated by World Trade Center dust.