dojN001876.xml

dojN001876.xml

born-digital

email

yes

no

2002-01-16

Wed 01/16/2002 10:07 AM
See attached file for Comments




January 16, 2001

Kenneth L. Zwick
Director, Office of Management Programs
Civil Division
U.S. Department of Justice
Main Building
Room 3140
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20530

Re: Comments to the Interim Final Rule

I am very confused about the calculation of non-economic damages. Why is this amount tied to some arbitrary amount of life insurance that the federal government provides to members of the military and public safety officers? This makes no sense. Take for example the situation of a member of the US military who died in the terrorist attacks on the Pentagon. Under the interim rules his family would be entitled to presumed non-economic damages of $250,000. The statute then requires them to deduct the $250,000 life insurance that he received leaving him with ZERO for non-economic damages. Is this what Congress intended to happen? I dont think so.

The Statute passed by Congress and signed by the President defined non-economic losses in twelve categories, including losses for:

- physical and emotional pain,
- suffering,
- inconvenience,
- physical impairment,
- mental anguish,
- disfigurement,
- loss of enjoyment of life,
- loss of society and companionship,
- loss of consortium (other than loss of domestic service),
- hedonic damages,
- injury to reputation,
- and all other non-pecuniary losses of any kind or nature.

The rules dont even make an attempt to comply with the very plain language of the statute.

The other thing that is very unfair about this process is that the Department of Justice publicly stated that the estimated recovery of each victim would be $1.6 million. That amount is grossly overstated as it doesnt consider the deductions for life insurance, social security, workers compensation, pension plans, etc. When the Department of Justice issues the revised rules it would be much more accurate an useful to the public to give an estimate of the net amount that is likely to be received by each victim after all of these deductions. I think that you may be surprised at how much the average victim will be required to deduct from the gross amount. Perhaps the Justice Department could contact the employers who had employees murdered on September 11 and see how much group life insurance was in place. Generally group life insurance provided by an employer pays double when an employee dies while at work. A reasonable assumption can be made for how much life insurance a person would generally purchases on his own and how much social security, workers compensation, pension, and other collateral payments most be deducted. Im confident that you would find that the average victim would retain only a small fraction of the gross award.

The victims of September 11 did not ask for this law. It was forced upon them. In addition to providing compensation, that appears now to be illusory, it limits the liability of airlines to the amount of its insurance policies. In most airplane crashes, that insurance policy is in place to cover the claims of the passengers on the plane, perhaps a couple hundred people. In this case there are 3,000 victims who died and probably at least that many who suffered injuries. The amount of insurance in place would not come close to providing an adequate remedy to the victims. Yet, the federal government absolved the airlines of any further liability for their negligence. To limit the amount of the payments to victims in an arbitrary way while making sure they cannot recover sufficient damages from the airlines is unconscionable.

It appears that the Department of Justice is determined to make the victim groups file suit over the fact that the regulations totally ignore the plain language of the statute. Why make these victims and the rest of America go through this? Please revise the regulations so that they follow the plain language and intent of the statute.

Thank you for considering my views on this.

Individual Comment
Concord, Massachusetts

2002-01-16