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, November 10, 2001 8:10 AM Fw: September 11 Victim Compensation Act Collateral Source Rule May Penalizes Diligence Dear Mr. Zwick: Please carefully cosider the following comment: September 11 Victim Compensation Act Collateral Source Rule Shouldn't Penalizes Diligence The VCA collateral source rule requires that any award under the Act must be reduced by the amount of any "collateral source compensation" that "the claimant has received or is entitled to". VCA Section 405(b)(6). The Act does not state that amounts received by VCF claimants from charities constitute "compensation", nor that a VCF claimant shall deemed "entitled to" any such amoumt, both within the meaning of VCA Section 405(b)(6). Therefore the Special Master should not reduce any compensation awarded under the Act, by the amount of any charity payment received by a VCF claimant regardless of whether or not actually received before application for or award under the Act. There are also practical reasons for the Special Master not to treat charity receipts as collateral source compensation to be deducted from awards under the Act. Despite the best intentions, anyone who has diligently applied to any 9/11 charity for help well knows the uncertainty of many charities' criteria for making grants; seeming inconsistency in grant amounts among comparably situated applicants; and vast discrepancies between published grant criteria and the amounts of charity awards. In this enviroment, how can the Special Master possibly determine the amount of charitable awards to which a VCA claimant is "entitled" but which the claimant has not received or for which the claimant has not even applied at the time of filing a VCA claim or determination under the Act? Such a deduction would penalize the claimant who diligently applies for and receives charitable grants before filiing a VCA claim, as compared to a claimant who perhaps intentionally delays applying to any charity until after receiving payment from the Special Master. If a major purpose of the Act is to encourage 9/11 victims to eschew the court system and rely upon the Special Master fairly to determine the amount of VCA compensation that a VCA claimant should receive, the amount of any charity receipt should be ignored in determining the compensation to which a VCA claimant is entitled. For all these reasons, charity receipts should not be considered "collateral source compensation" under the VCA. Respectfully submitted, Individual Comment Goshen, IN September 11 Email: Date The local time and date when the message was written. 2001-11-10 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 dojW000296.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. 2001-11-10