dojN001478.xml

dojN001478.xml

born-digital

email

yes

no

2002-01-09

Wednesday, January 09, 2002 4:53 PM
world trade center compensation fund

Kenneth R. Feinberg, Special Master
World Trade Center Compensation Fund
Department of Justice
Washington, D.C.

Dear Mr. Feinberg:

I wish to express my faith in your ability to distribute this Fund with the utmost fairness, and specifically to support the Interim Rule against the criticisms leveled by Rep. Peter King and certain victims relatives.

It is morally right, even if the statute did not require it, to consider the individual needs of the survivors, in ways that may differ from the way that damages would be calculated in the tort litigation process. It is also right that there be uniform base-line awards for non-economic damage suffered by each victim, each surviving spouse and each surviving child. Most survivors certainly would not want to relive, through litigation, the last horrifying moments of the catastrophe, and in most cases the experience of individual victims in these last moments will be impossible to determine. To give more money in cases where victims or families are more eager to testify, or more effective in communicating the impact of the trauma, would lead to serious inequities.

I disagree strongly with the objection by Rep. King to the concept of a "cap" on awards for the families of exceptionally-high-earning victims. Rep. King says compensation should be in proportion to earnings, without limit, because the victims "were the symbols of American capitalism, the symbols of American business," and were murdered because of this.

I look at September 11 and its aftermath in a profoundly different way. This nightmare vividly brought home how death is the "great leveler." As the New York Times so eloquently demonstrated with its "Portraits of Grief," for every vice-president who died, a security guard died with him. For every bond trader who died, a cook died as well. And so forth. Each person, whatever his or her income or profession, had a life, a family, a personality, a human uniqueness that no compensation check can capture. The terrorists aimed at America. We are all Americans. Who lived and who died was a matter of luck, not wealth or status. It is this aspect of September 11 that caused New Yorkers, and Americans, to "rally round" as never before in my lifetime, and this aspect of September 11 must be honored, and respected, by your administration of the Fund.

In the normal world of finance and economics, a person may be "entitled to" something based on purely economic factors. Nothing about Sept. 11 was normal, and the "normal" civil litigation rules cannot apply. Attempting to apply them would not be practical and would not be fair.

I urge you to adhere to your statement, in the Interim Rule, that in the cases of the highest earners, awards in excess of the guideline figure will not be approved in situations where "multi-million dollar awards out of the public coffers are not necessary to provide [the survivors] with a strong economic foundation from which to rebuild their lives." The country has many pressing needs, in the wake of September 11. The Interim Rule appears to be a fair, thoughtful and sensible way of recognizing our collective needs as we meet the individual needs of the victims and survivors.

Yours truly,
Individual Comment
Brooklyn, NY

2002-01-09