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. December 11, 2001 Kenneth L. Zwick, Director Office of Management Programs U.S. Department of Justice Civil Division Main Building, Room 3140 950 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W. Washington, D.C.20530 Dear Mr. Zwick: I would like to take this opportunity to comment on the regulations which you are presently drafting which will govern the September 11th Victims Compensation Fund. My son, , was tragically killed on September 11th while an employee of on the floor. As I understand it, this fund was established to compensate the families of the victims and to expeditiously assist them in that process. While this is a very noble endeavor, I feel that in your effort to complete the drafting of regulations in a speedy manner, there may be some vital points overlooked. I would greatly appreciate your considering the following: 1. PROCEDURES TO ASSIST CLAIMANTS: Topic 234 Only attorneys licensed to practice should be permitted to assist or represent claimants for obvious reasons. There are a number of experienced attorneys who are volunteering their services to assist and represent these claimants so that there should be no need to enlist the services of non-lawyers who lack the training, knowledge, experience and skills necessary to properly carry out their obligation to the claimants. Furthermore, non-lawyers would not be governed by the Disciplinary Rules and not covered by liability insurance. To protect the claimants, only lawyers should be permitted to assist and represent them. 2. NATURE AND AMOUNT OF COMPENSATION: Topic 236 Schedules should not be used. Each claimant should be treated individually and not as a statistic. Since the Department wishes to avoid the claimants' presenting economic expert evidence, then independent experts should be available to the Special Master whose reports should be made available to the claimants for review and comment before a decision is reached. The claimant should be allowed to offer evidence of Government statistics studies and tables to aid the independent economic experts. 3. NON-ECONOMIC LOSS: Topic 236 Again, each case should be considered and evaluated separately. Many of the cases will involve "pre-death terror", claims which should not be lumped together, but should be evaluated independently of each other. May I especially draw your attention to the issue of "collateral sources" as I feel that the intent of the many generous individuals was not to aid the federal government. 4. COLLATERAL SOURCES: Topic 236 Charitable contributions should not be included in the definition of collateral sources. The generous people who contributed to the various victims' funds would be quite upset to learn that their gifts were in effect, going to the federal government instead of the victims. This is actually what would happen if the charitable contributions were used to offset the government's liability. Such a rule would also discourage charitable giving to these victims funds. For policy reasons, therefore, such a rule should not be adopted. In kind/or other material contributions should also not be considered as a collateral sources. Please give these comments your careful consideration. Sincerely yours, Individual Comment September 11 Email: Date The local time and date when the message was written. 2001-12-11 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 dojA005511.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. 2001-12-11