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 15, 2002 4:57 PM Interim Regulations Overall, I think the published Interim Regulations for the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund of 2001 establish a fair and efficient process for expediting reasonable compensation to most of the individuals and families harmed by this tragedy. I do see, however, one substantial defect in the regulations, which may well serve to undermine one of the statutory purposes: litigation avoidance. I comment upon that defect below. It appears from the interim regulations, and the accompanying loss tables, that compensation awards for "economic loss" are being capped at the level of the 98th percentile of income earners ($231,000). Placing such an artificial cap on the potential fund awards for this type of demonstrable loss leaves a huge gap in the fairness of this regulatory system. That gap, stated plainly, is wholly inadequate compensation for the families of the highest wage earners: for example, a bond trader at Cantor Fitzgerald who might have been earning an annual salary of $1 million. Why should fund compensation for the economic loss experienced by that bond trader's family be capped through reference to a $231,000 salary, rather than the trader's actual salary of $1 million? How can it possibly be fair for that bond trader's family to receive the same economic loss compensation from the fund as the family of another victim who might have been earning exactly $231,000 annually? Ironically, this irrational shortfall in economic loss compensation for all victims who were earning above $231,000 on 9/11 will potentially alienate the very individuals likely to have the contacts, resources and motivation to pursue the type of plaintiff's litigation against the airline industry that the fund seeks to avoid. Higher wage-earning victims, of course, will also lead to higher damages claims - and, ultimately, higher potential awards - against the airlines as well. Thus, the artificial cap on economic loss recoveries from the fund for the highest earning victims may well serve to drive the families of those victims to the very litigation that the fund seeks to abrogate in the first instance. Fortunately, there is a simple solution to this defect in the Interim Regulations: just remove the 98th percentile/$231,000 cap used under the fund's formulas to calculate economic loss in these upper end circumstances, and allow those same formulas to use each victim's actual earnings to calculate true - not deemed - economic loss. Individual Comment Washington, D.C. September 11 Email: Date The local time and date when the message was written. 2002-01-15 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 dojN001647.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. 2002-01-15