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. Saturday, January 19, 2002 6:41 PM Victim Compensation Program - Comments on Interim Rules and Regulations Mr. Kenneth Feinberg Special Master, Victim Compensation Program U.S. Departmennt of Justice, Washington, D.C. Dear Mr. Feinberg: My husband, , 28, was killed in the horrendous events of September 11, 2001, while at work at , floor of Tower 1 at the World Trade Center. At the time, I was also working as a teacher, and pregnant with our first child. In the trauma that followed September 11, I had to leave my job. I also had to sell our house, which I could not afford, having lost both of our incomes, and expecting a baby. I moved in with my parents to conserve resources. On December 9 our baby was born, and now I must concentrate on raising her without the benefit of my husband's company and support. I was grateful and had a measure of hope when Congress passed the Victim Compensation Program, reflecting the fairness and generosity of the American people. I followed with interest the news about the Program and your appointment. And I was dismayed when I read the Interim Rules and Regulations and the justifications that were published. With a constructive intent, I would like to offer the following comments to improve the workings of the Program: 1. The Victim Compensation Program offers an alternative to suing and going to trial, to seek compensation for wrongful death from the murderers and from those who failed to provide protection: the U.S. government, the airlines and the owners of the buildings and the land. As an alternative to the right to trial, the Program's methodology for estimating the awards, as well as the magnitude of the awards, should be similar to those followed and obtained in court. Since by opting into the Program a claimant loses the rights to go to trial and to appeal, the Program should offer much fairer, better defined and guaranteed results. 2. The published methodology to arrive at the economic loss portion of the awards is unfair and inadequate in the following ways: a) The proposed averaging of the victim's earnings for the years 1998, 1999 and 2000 as the basis for the calculation of lost lifetime earnings, immediately discounts the victim's earnings by 2 years worth of gains. The logical and fair basis to begin the calculation of lost lifetime earnings, should be the victim's earnings for the year 2001, annualized. b) The estimated annual earning increases based on national statistics do not reflect the typical, actual earning increases of victims in the financial industry in New York City. At a minimum, a claimant should be able to provide the victim's actual history of earning increases and statistics applicable to the victim's profession and industry. c) The victims' presumed retirement age should be the standard age 65, not an arbitrarily assumed early retirement. 3. The pain and suffering portion of the presumptive and actual awards should be reflective of awards reached in comparable court trials. The published presumptive awards for pain and suffering are woefully inadequate and inconsistent with those from court trials. 4. Life insurance is an economic remedy to protect from economic loss. If life insurance proceeds must be deducted from the awards (highly unfair, but stated in the statute creating the Program), then they should be deducted ONLY from the economic loss portion of the award. Deducting life insurance proceeds from the pain and suffering portion of the award would be an injustice. In effect, the portion of the award attributable to pain and suffering should be made the MINIMUM GUARANTEED AWARD. 5. The proposed deduction of Social Security and Workers Compensation benefits is outrageous. The victims and their employers PAID for that protection, which represents a minimum level of protection MANDATED BY LAW. If these benefits are subtracted, one can only conclude the absurdity that Congress did not really intend to create a Victim Compensation Program. I appreciate your dedication to your difficult task, and look forward to seeing improved Rules and Regulations for the Victim Compensation Program. Sincerely, Individual Comment Manhasset, NY September 11 Email: Date The local time and date when the message was written. 2002-01-19 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 dojN002086.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. 2002-01-19