The Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of New York on Thursday denied a workers compensation claim filed by a man who was hired to help manage the trucks coming into and leaving the disaster site at the World Trade Center following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Peter Kearns, an ironworker by trade, was hired by a subcontractor to monitor and record comings and goings of trucks hauling debris at the site in late 2001. In 2013, he filed an employee claim for workers compensation benefits for injuries allegedly sustained as a result of exposure to toxic debris at the site, including emphysema, chronic bronchitis, asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, according to documents in Peter Kearns v. Decisions Strategies Environment and the Workers Compensation Board, filed in the state Supreme Court’s Third Department in Albany, New York.

In 2014, he filed a registration of his participation in the World Trade Center rescue, recovery and cleanup operations with the Workers' Compensation Board, per state law. Following hearings, a workers compensation law judge found, among other things, that claimant's activities were covered by state law and established a claim for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, gastroesophageal reflux disease and sleep apnea syndrome, records state.

On appeal by the general contractor Decisions Strategies, the Workers' Compensation Board reversed, finding that the claim was “untimely under Workers' Compensation Law… and that claimant's job activities monitoring trucks were not covered by Workers' Compensation Law… as he was not a participant involved in ‘rescue, recovery, or cleanup operations’ within the meaning of Workers' Compensation Law.

On appeal to the highest court, a panel of five judges affirmed the board’s decision, writing: “Substantial evidence supports the Board's determination that claimant's employment activities at this site did not constitute participation in the "rescue, recovery, or cleanup operations.”

“Generally, the Board requires that the claimant directly participate in or otherwise have some tangible connection to the rescue, recovery or cleanup operations… claim described claimant's job as ‘checking trucks hauling debris away,’ and he testified that his job consisted of logging trucks in as they passed him on their way into the site and, after they filled up, he logged them out as they left the site,” the ruling stated.

“There was no testimony that claimant directly aided or supported the drivers or first responders or that he engaged in the recovery or rescue in any respect, nor that he directly engaged in any cleanup activity or transport of people or materials, nor that he controlled who had access to the site,” the ruling concluded.