dojW000252.xml

dojW000252.xml

born-digital

email

yes

no

2001-11-07

Wednesday, November 07, 2001 3:06 PM
September 11 Victims Compensation Fund

I am a personal injury lawyer in New York City and have volunteered to represent victims before the Special Master without fee. It is hoped that sharing my perspective with you will be of some help in determining whether or not to consider charitable contributions as a "collateral source" to reduce any award to September 11 victims from the U.S. government. As pointed out in the page one article in the New York Times article on November 7, 2001, this is not an easy issue to decide.

It is my opinion that charitable contributions should not be used to reduce any award. Doing otherwise will make the task of determining a fair award more difficult. The fund is set up to make an early determination of damages and pay the award quickly. However, how will the Special Master be able to determine how much money any particular victim is likely to get from charity after an award is made? With pension benefits, insurance proceeds and the like, it is a fairly easy and routine task to calculate and determine the value of money that will be paid out in the future. Charitable contributions to the victims are not based upon any contract or legal obligation and by their very nature will be arbitrary and unevenly distributed. For this reason, charity should not be considered a deduction from these awards. Further, I do not believe there is any precedent in routine personal injury litigation establishing charitable contributions as a collateral source.

Deducting charitable contributions from Fund awards will also make it far more difficult for the various charities to determine an equitable way to distribute money to the victims. They will be faced with the prospect of distributing much needed money immediately to victims or families knowing that it will reduce the ultimate award from the Fund or delaying distribution of the money in the hope that doing so will ultimately result in a larger amount of money going to the donees.

It seems to me that the only disadvantage of my proposal is that it will cost the government more to compensate the victims. Whether the money to victims comes from charity or the government, it ultimately will be paid by the American people. Everyone I have spoken to feels strongly that the people who directly suffered from this attack on our country should be compensated as fully as possible.

Please contact this office if you care for anymore information or opinions from me.

Individual Comment
New York, NY

2001-11-07