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. Monday, November 26, 2001 8:11 AM Advance Notice of Rulemaking for Comment Dear Mr. Zwick, My brother-in-law, was killed in the South Tower of the World Trade Center on September 11th, 2001. Enclosed is a recap of my understanding of the 'Victims Compensation' Legislation as well as my comments and questions that arise from that legislation. If you have any questions or need further information, please feel free to contact me at the above address. Sincerely, The September 11th Victims Compensation Fund PL107-42 (2001) A victim or his estate may seek no-fault compensation from the program or may bring a tort action against an airline or any other party, but may not do both. To be eligible to recover, a claimant will have to waive his right to sue anyone for damages caused by the terrorist attacks, except to recover collateral source obligations Amount of Recovery Determined by the Special Master based on: (i) the extent of the harm to the claimant, including any economic and non-economic losses (ii) the amount of compensation to which the claimant is entitled based on the harm to the claimant, the facts of the claim, and the individual circumstances of the claimant. The Special Master shall reduce the amount of compensation .. . by the amount of the collateral source compensation the claimant has received or is entitled to receive .. Collateral source compensation, as noted above, includes life insurance, pension funds, death benefit programs and payments by Federal, State, or local governments related to the terrorist-related aircraft crashes of September 11, 2001. Several questions arise from this legislation: 1) Who has standing to file a claim? Either the victim, someone injured by the aircraft related events of 9/11/01 Or In the case of a deceased victim, the personal representative on behalf of the estate. The legislation specifically prohibits family members and others from filing a claim under this legislation on their own behalf. This narrow construction of who has standing to file a claim under this legislation has two effects: 1) to require the waiver of all rights to sue anybody on the part of the person filing the claim 2) at the same time specifically failing to extend this same prohibition to others, presumably family members, to bring a tort action against the airlines or any other defendant to recover losses as a result of 9/11. If we accept that Congress clearly intended to specifically limit claimants rights as well as standing under this statute then I would suggest that Congress also intended to equally narrowly construct what constitutes Collateral source compensation as it applies to recovery. Thus any Life Insurance, Pension or other compensation payable upon death to a named beneficiary OTHER THAN THE ESTATE should not be considered as collateral source compensation as these are not, in the language of the act compensation the claimant (e.g. the Estate) has received or is entitled to receive. This line of reasoning carries even more weight when considering payments from charitable organizations. Again in the case of a decedent claimant it would seem clear that these payments do not qualify for consideration of award reduction as they are not, in the language of the act compensation the claimant (e.g. the Estate) has received or is entitled to receive. The question then becomes In the case of a decedent claimant, what should be included in collateral source compensation? Should a 401(k) POD to the Estate be included? Should a 401(k) POD to a named party other than the Estate be included? Should a Life Insurance Policy covering the decedent and payable to the Estate be included? Should a Life Insurance Policy covering the decedent and payable to a named beneficiary other than the estate be included? Should a Life Insurance Policy covering a third party, which is owned by the decedent and the decedent is the named beneficiary, and the third party dies after the decedent and unrelated to 9/11 events, be included? Finally there remains much confusion about the provision in the law that the determination of the Special Master shall be final and not subject to judicial review. Was it congressional intent to prohibit the appeal of the amount of an award granted by the Special Master? Or was it the intent of Congress to prohibit all judicial review even in the case of procedural error, malfeasance and fraud? Will the Federal Courts uphold the constitutionality of a Congressional provision that bars all judical review? Wouldn't this provision effectively abridge the rights of a citizen to due process? Can a claimant seek judicial review of a determination by the Special Master where the claimant can reasonable assert that the Special Master failed to follow the established procedure and as a result brought harm to the claimant? - - - - - - - - - - - Some additional comments: I attended an 'information session' hosted by the law firm of on November 16th, in Woodbridge, New Jersey. This 'event' was apparently put together with the assistance of several widows of Cantor Fitzgerald employees/victims. Essentially the event was a shameless 'infomerical' for participating in 'the Fund' and endorsing the position of Trial Lawyers Care (TLC). I do not support the positions contained in the letter drafted by these widows (in conjunction with ) and sent to you as comments under the signature of "Families of September 11th Victims". I also take issue with some of the positions / issues that were offered during this event, including: 1) One of the widows responding to a question from the audience indicating that " . . . DOJ was only interested in hearing comments from victims families (not the general public) because we have the power to shape these regulations . . ." 2) The attorney who spoke for who suggested this legislation allows for compensation of victims spouses and other family members for 'pain and suffering'. I believe the language of this bill is quite clear and that Congress did NOT intend to include compensation for 'pain and suffering' for anyone other than the actual victim. 3) The attorney who spoke for describing NJ State Law that currently does not allow for a spouse to recover 'pain and suffering' on their own behalf in a wrongful death case. This attorney went on to suggest that the audience should support the efforts of in January 2002 to lobby the NJ State Legislature to change the provisions of NJ's Wrongful Death Statutes to allow for spousal compensation for 'pain and suffering'. The clear implication was that such a change would benefit Sept. 11 victims spouses should they decide to file a civil action. However, I am under the impression that our Constitution prohibts Ex-Post Facto legislation and that any such change in the statue would have no impact on litigation arising from the September 11th tragedy. Individual Comment East Brunswick, NJ September 11 Email: Date The local time and date when the message was written. 2001-11-26 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 dojW000769.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. 2001-11-26