CHRONIC WTC SYNDROMES

Not even the 9/11 attacks are safe from the crosshairs of America's favorite firearm-litigation. Two lawsuits, one new, one old, popped from the WTC ruins into the limelight last week. Hearings were held Thursday on the city's motion to dismiss a class-action lawsuit on behalf of firefighters, police officers and construction workers who labored at Ground Zero. Plaintiff lawyer David Worby, who filed the suit in September 2004, says his 8,000 clients are developing cancer, respiratory diseases and other ailments because the government failed to protect them from toxic substances at the site. NYC has now pulled the "legal immunity" card, and as backup, says it made a "good faith" effort to protect workers. Though there are documented cases supporting Worby's suit-34-year-old policeman James Zadroga died in January of respiratory failure linked to the site-the medical stats on Worby's clients remain private, for VIP eyes only. And no one has comprehensively tracked the health of the estimated 40-75,000 WTC workers. The Patrolmen's Benevolent Association announced Sunday that it is considering such a registry for its officers who responded on 9/11.

Meanwhile, in another courtroom, Paramount is suing amateur filmmaker Chris Moukarbel, 28, for filming a 12-minute knockoff of Oliver Stone's World Trade Center, set for release in August. A Yale graduate with a master's in fine arts, Moukarbel used a bootlegged script to portray two Port Authority cops lying under fallen concrete. Ring any bells? It's not Moukarbel's profit Paramount fears, but damage to their own box office. Frets the lawsuit: "Large numbers of people will see the Moukarbel film for free?and determine, based on this poor-quality copy, that they do not want to pay to see the remainder of the WTC film." The fine arts indeed.