Company sues to recover cost of unused body bags

NEW YORK -- A company sued the city Thursday for the cost of 100,000 body bags that it said the city hastily ordered after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks but later realized were not needed.

Fordion Packaging Ltd., of Hackensack, N.J., said in the lawsuit that it was owed at least $203,388 for the body bags the city ordered immediately after two planes hit the World Trade Center.

The 2001 terrorist attack killed nearly 2,800 people and collapsed the 110-story twin towers in a 10-story-high pile of rubble.

According to the lawsuit, the company put other orders on hold to respond to the city's needs, delivering the bags within a week. The city used some bags, it added.

The company said the city tried to reject the bags on the grounds that they were not suitable for their intended use when the "true reason" was that far fewer bodies were recovered from the disaster scene than were first anticipated.

Kate O'Brien Ahlers, a city law department spokeswoman, said the city had not yet received the court papers and had no immediate comment.