Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Department of Justice Emails Description An account of the resource The Department of Justice received more than 11,000 e-mails in response to the agency's public solicitation for comments upon its plans to distribute the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund of 2001 established by Congress to benefit the victims of September 11 and their families. These e-mails have been organized here by date. September 11 Email September 11 Email: Body The basic content, as unstructured text; sometimes containing a signature block at the end. Tuesday, January 22, 2002 1:26 PM Comments on iterim final rules regarding Sept 11Victims Compensation Fund Construction My name is &nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp and I'm the father of one of the deceased Victims of the Sept 11th terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center. I live at &nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp . We lost our son &nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp on Sept 11th. &nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp worked at &nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp on the &nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp floor of Tower 2. &nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp was &nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp years old , unmarried with no children. My concerns regarding the interim final rules are basically two: 1. Knowing what the final award will be prior to official acceptance. If claimant is required to waive their right to pursue legal action it would seem only reasonable that the exact settlement to claimant is verified and agreed to prior to acceptance. This would eliminate the possibility of any misunderstandings. 2. Private insurance premiums paid by the Victims were paid to protect their loved ones financially in the event of death. Their responsible behavior should in no way be offset by this horrific terrorist act. If the concern of the Federal Government is minimizing the use of American dollars then freeze the assets of the 60 countries engaged in or supporting terrorist activities and use those monies to compensate the impact to the treasury. Wrongful death, i.e.. murder, should have no beneficial financial offset flowing to anyone culpable on the back of the murdered victims. Finally, by way of an editorial comment; I sincerely hope that no additional weight is given to the numerous mass e-mailings going to the DOJ's web site [requesting comments] on the part of those groups with an obvious political agenda. In fact it is my hope that they be discounted. Specific Objections to the arbitrary interim final rule construction: I am writing to express my serious concerns and objections to the Department of Justice's (DOJ) "Interim Final Regulations Governing Payments Under the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund." The airline bailout act gave the airlines $15 billion in cash and loan guarantees and capped the airlines' liability for the September 11 crashes at the limits of their insurance coverage. Because of this cap, the damage caused by the crashes greatly exceeds the private fund available to compensate victims and their families. Thus for the vast majority of victims and families, the cap has the effect of eliminating the right that they would otherwise have to sue the airlines. Congress set up the fund to ensure that the airline bailout would not come at the expense of the victims' families. The act mandates full and fair compensation to victims and their families for their actual economic and non-economic damages. DOJ has ignored this mandate and instead has written arbitrary regulations that will result in compensation levels far below the losses actual suffered by the victims and their families. In fact, many families' total compensation from the fund and all collateral sources combined will not even fully replace lost income. In effect, these families will not receive any of the non- economic compensation required by the statute. After collateral sources are deducted, as required by the statute, some families would receive nothing from the fund under the interim final regulations. DOJ's formula allows for non-economic awards at only one-tenth the level paid in comparable cases, even though Congress explicitly enumerated a broader range of non-economic damages than could be recovered in any single jurisdiction. DOJ's formula for non-economic damages is $250,000 for the person killed and $50,000 for the spouse and each dependent. In a wide variety of air crash and terrorism cases, however, judges, juries, and mediators commonly have provided non-economic damage awards well into the seven-figure range. Independent economists have found serious flaws in DOJ's method of calculating economic damages, including use of outdated and inapplicable worklife and life-cycle earnings data. DOJ greatly underestimates promotions and other increases in earnings for victims. It relies on civil service and military retirement system actuarial data that track federal worker incomes and pension requirements, not the higher-paying private sector career paths followed by the vast majority of the victims. The interim final regulations also arbitrarily cap a victim's income at $231,000 a year. Combined with the faulty methodology described above, the income cap would result in some families receiving compensation for less than 25% of their actual economic losses. Under DOJ's rules, a family's award may be increased above the "presumptive" award only by a showing of "extraordinary circumstances" -- beyond those suffered by other victims or victims' families. This high burden of proof makes a charade of the right to a hearing provided by the statute. DOJ should fulfill the act's intent by revising the rules to compensate victims and their families for the types of damages specified by Congress, at levels comparable to those provided in the tort system the fund was designed to replace. While DOJ has shown flexibility on some aspects of the rules, it is resisting the victims' and families' requests for significant changes. If the proposed regulations are not changed significantly, victims' widows will have to sell their homes, deplete their children's college funds, and give up their plans of being full-time parents while their children are young. Many families, anticipating little relief from the fund, will decide to sue the airlines and others, despite the handicap of the liability limits. We do not believe these are the outcomes Congress intended. Thank you for your swift and focused attention to this injustice. Individual Comment September 11 Email: Date The local time and date when the message was written. 2002-01-22 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource dojN002272.xml 911DA Item Elements describing a September 11 Digital Archive item. Status The process status of this item. approved Consent Whether September 11 Digital Archive has permission to possess this item. full Posting Whether the contributor gave permission to post this item. yes Copyright Whether the contributor holds copyright to this item. yes Source The source of this item. born-digital Media Type The media type of this item. email Created by Author Whether the author created this item. yes Described by Author Whether the description of this item was submitted by the author. no Date Entered The date this item was entered into the archive. 2002-01-22