dojN002224.xml

dojN002224.xml

born-digital

email

yes

no

2002-01-22

Tuesday, January 22, 2002 9:54 AM
victim's compensation plan

Dear Mr. Feinberg,

This letter is to inform you that I am the wife of a man who died in the terrorist attack on our nation on September 11, 2001. When I first heard about the Victim's Compensation Fund, I felt great relief. It seemed to be a reasonable and fair way to help the families avoid litigation and protect the airlines.

Mr Feinberg, this fund will virtually exclude me and my children. My husband and I planned for our future and took care to protect ourselves. We bought Life Insurance and paid high premiums for that insurance. My husband was vested and paid into a pension. We will be penalized for careful and responsible fiscal planning by having those amounts off-set any award (strange term) that we might have received. This would not be allowed in a court of law. I realize that this component of the fund was voted in by congress but it is flawed.

That is just one small area of the fund that is defective. I refer you to the letter sent to you on 1/14/02 by my Congressman, Marty Meehan, for a full text of the inadequacies of this fund.

Perhaps I am not fully understanding the purpose of the fund. My husband suffered a wrongful death, most likely in hand-to-hand combat with terrorists who . , I cannot even imagine the horror of that situation. I do not know when I will be able to step on an aircraft again knowing that to be the place where my good husband was murdered. He will not finish his last 10 years of employment with so there is still a loss of income and his pension was reduced by half of what it would have accrued. Because of these events, I cannot return to my job as a for for quite some time. Because of the way this fund is set up, I will receive basically the same benefits I would have received if my husband had died in a car crash. However, his death was certainly very different than a car crash. Those facts simply address some of the financial aspects of my life and do not even touch on the personal loss of my family.

My husband, , was a victim of terrorism. I decided early on that I would stand proud as an American and not allow those heinous deeds to make me a victim also. The terrorists could not do that to me. Please do not allow my own government and the DOJ to succeed where the terrorists failed. The rules of the Victim's Compensation Fund need serious adjustment in order to fulfill the intent of Congress.
Sincerely,
Individual Comment
Dracut, MA

2002-01-22