dojP000589.xml

dojP000589.xml

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2002-02-22

Friday, February 22, 2002 5:12 PM
Comments from some Internet postings

February 22, 2002

Kenneth L. Zwick, Director
Office of Management Programs
Civil Division
U.S. Department of Justice
Main Building, Room 3140
950 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, DC 20530

Dear Mr. Zwick:

A fraud is being perpetrated on the American People. The September 11th Victim Compensation Fund of 2001 has been hijacked by the [in]Justice Department for its own ends while preparing to give perhaps half of the intended recipients of the fund no money at all. I do not know if one of the hidden objectives is to simply discourage participation in the Fund, especially by those who would be the most costly to the Fund. How else can one explain the enormous number of material objections to the Final Interim Regulations which at every turn pick and choose the lowest possible entitlement and the lowest possible payout. This can't be explained by sheer incompetence alone, for just by chance the plan would have missed some ways of making a reduction or left a reasonable award alone, but no, each and every opportunity has been seized! In order to carry out this fraud the victims of the act have to be neutralized -- hence the Victims and the Heroes 9/11 are being slandered in a disinformation campaign authored by &nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp . I bring up a case in point :

In an unsigned editorial of the 10th of February, the Chicago Tribune published a PR piece that might as well have come straight from the desk of &nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp . He claims to be appalled by the cry of greed on the part of the uninformed public, while still repeating the deceptive "$1.65 million average award" figure, this time not even adding the fine print "before deductions." The article states that some of us [ the victims] have said that this is not enough, but what I hear is that many say that the $1.65 million figure is meaningless. A significant number of families will get zero ("$0") under the final interim rules. From a show of hands it appears that about half of the families in one meeting which I have attended, expect to receive nothing from the Fund, myself included. Are we wrong to complain?

The headline of the piece is "Putting a price on a life" but the reader has to wait for the closing punch line for the answer that "There is no dollar value of a human life" but $250,000 is the best we can come up with. We are told to believe it makes no sense to look at the history of "tort" law where slip and fall injuries routinely run past that figure, major surgical procedures and rehabilitation can exceed this and today the cost of raising and educating one child through college exceeds $300,000. The government's position is like saying the value of a Van Gogh masterpiece is a little less than the cost of the canvas, turpentine and oil paint used to produce it.

The article alleges that " that Congress clearly intended the fund as a safety net for those who did not have substantial life insurance or other assets" but I can not find any language in the law or implementing instructions that corroborates this assertion; the law does state, however, that its purpose is "to provide compensation to any individual ... who was physically injured or killed" This is not a welfare program. In fact, if the intent of the law were to narrow the gap between the have and have nots, this peculiar implementation by the Special Master exacerbates the gap by artificially capping all non-economic losses which include the extraordinary pain and suffering of being incinerated alive, to the cost of painting supplies, if you will.

We are reminded that "[o]f course, no one is forcing the families to take the money and forfeit the right to sue" but, the Special Master spends 15 minuets of his presentation telling us that the government has stacked the deck by capping the liability of the airlines and giving itself the option of being first to recoup from the airlines insurance any payments made from the Victims' Fund. Under the present final interim rules, the government payout is estimated to be as low as $2 billion after deductions and that the entire sum could be recovered from the airlines insurance. So much for the Special Master's "generosity argument."

Perhaps most disappointing is the way the &nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp promotes &nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp pillaging of the victims in these airy PR pieces distorting the truth. He considers his job as "10 percent lawyer, 40 percent rabbi, 50 percent shrink." I would gladly exchange this for a 100% honest man. --





The feelings of bitterness run deep on both sides of the issue as these excerpts from an on line bulletin board attest:



[Comment 1]
I am the surviving spouse of someone who was killed in the attack on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. Now, months after the event, I know that many Americans are still very concerned about me. I am writing this to put their minds at ease.

Don't worry about me. I'm doing just fine! I'm a celebrity. You've probably seen me on TV. And best of all, I hit the lottery on September 11th. Not the Big one (I was thinking like $10 million, but it seems that there were way too many winners that day) but, hey, $1.6 million, works for me.

You figure a plane crash-has to be worth at least $5 million. Terrorist action-$5million is almost guaranteed. Two Americans killed by Palestinian terrorists while riding a bus in Israel got $10M each. Think about Lokerbie. How about $5million for 2nd and 3rd degree burns of a single arm caused by an exploding cappuccino machine? But, like I said, there were just too many winning tickets, that day.

A regular plane crash is no problem. It's a statistically predictable event. Nobody ever envisioned that those holy messengers of Allah would greatly enhance the probabilities, or perhaps we simply chose to be blind. Anyway, as I said, a regular crash now and then is expected. Its part of the business. Think about it, drop one every now and again, 200 souls at a cost of $5 to $10 million apiece, no problem, its covered by the insurance carriers. Hell, it's a sound business practice, they even have a name for it. It's called "cost effectiveness". After all, its cheaper to pay the premiums than it is to provide the proper protection.

For months after drawing the winning ticket, I'm on a roll. I'm on CNN, Fox News, CNBC, the network news channels, radio, the internet, you name it. I'm the focus of international attention. Everyone feels what I feel. We're with you, they say. Nothing's too good for you. They open up their hearts and their wallets. God bless them, they give more than a billion dollars freely. I even managed to get some of that. Just enough to get by, but so what, I have the winning ticket. My daughters and I may go live in the south of France (I just love St. Tropez in the summer).

I call my lawyer. It's time to cash in my ticket. Bad news, there are too many winners, more than 3,000 at $5 to $10 million apiece. We'll bankrupt the airlines. "Who cares", says I, "we'll take the planes, the real estate and whatever else we can get". "No", says Uncle Sam, "we must save the Airlines". "Good", I say, "you save them so I can sue them". "No again", says the Uncle, "you can't sue, we've got it rigged in such a way that even if you are successful in your lawsuit, we will make sure that you don't get any more than the amount that we decide you should have". I reply, "But what about the constitution, what happened to 'due process'?" "Don't worry about that stuff", he says, " I'll cash your winning ticket, trust me". "Okay", I say, "give me my 10 big ones and I'll be on my way".

Now you have to understand my Uncle, he cares about me very deeply and would do anything for me but $10 million is a little too steep, even for his deep pockets. So, "how much?", I ask, hoping for at least $5 million. "Well", says the Uncle, "You have to understand I'm going to give you your prize as soon as you sign on the dotted line, no waiting. No fuss, no muss, no bother! For this extraordinary service you're going to have to take a bit of a discount" (always ready to make a deal, my Uncle). But, "How much?" I repeat. "Don't worry", he says, "just sign on the dotted line and I'll tell you. You know that I will be fair and just, trust me". Seeing that I am a little wary, he whispers in my ear, "Look, this is a kind of 'take-it-or-leave-it' type thing, but I'll tell you what I am going to do because I feel what you feel. I will bring in my army of accountants, have them sharpen up their pencils and come up with formula to pay off all the winners. And to ensure that the deal is fair and just, I will have them compile a chart so that each lucky winner can find his particular ticket number on the chart and get a good idea of what the amount will be before you sign away your rights. Trust me, we're family. I feel what you feel.

When I get the chart, I look up my numbers. Let's see, widow with two children, husband, 40 years old with average earnings of $80,000 a year gives me $1.6 million ($1,583,484 to be exact, but who's counting?). It's not $10 million but still, not bad.
Okay, sign me up, I'll be down to pick up the check in the morning.

"Glad to see you" says my Uncle," just sign this paper waiving your right to sue and I'll write your check". He must see my hesitation because he puts on that warm friendly grin of his and says, "You know you can trust your dear old generous Uncle Sam". "Okay", I say. I sign the paper and he gives me a check for $223,975. "What's up with this?", I ask "in all of the other similar cases involving airplanes and/or terrorists, if you settle for $5 million you get $5million or if you settle for $2 million, that's what you get.. How did my $1.6 million shrink to $224 thousand"?

Uncle Sam, never at a loss for words, explains it to me like this, "Well, you see this is a special situation, saving the airlines is an expensive proposition, so my accountants with their very sharp pencils have determined that you don't really need all that money. In order to make it fair and just, they have come up with this really neat and novel way to reduce your winnings by a series of deductions called "collateral offsets". I telling you, they really sharpened up those pencils! Bless their hearts. Doesn't it make you proud to be an American?"

"Those nifty little collateral offsets work something like this. We calculate that over your lifetime you and your children will receive the equivalent of around $500,000 in monthly social security benefits. You will also receive workers compensation payments of $400 a week which totals to a present value of around $350,000 over your remaining life. Also because your husband had a life insurance policy and a 401 (k) plan you will also receive a lump sum payment from these items of around $500,000" (Too bad I didn't know about this during the years that we were scrimping to pay for these things, but, hey, that's water under the bridge). So they're taking $1,350,000 away from my winnings, its okay, its for a good cause, we must all join together to save the airlines.

I had to agree, what with the $800 a week that I am going to get from Social Security and Workers compensation combined, along with the life insurance and 401(k) proceeds, I really don't need much more to exist. I think that if I start drawing down on the principal of the life insurance settlement, I can probably continue to pay my mortgage. And I also have the $224,000 that my dear old Uncle so generously gave me.

So you can see it didn't turn out so bad, in fact it was a real windfall. My Uncle told me that he was happy for me and happy to be so fair and just. He said it all worked out pretty well because the $224,000 was only slightly less than the amount that he gives to military personnel who are killed in the line of duty. I tried to explain that my husband was not a military man and he didn't sign up for hazardous duty pay. He was only a computer programmer sitting at his desk when a Boeing 767 landed on him and burst into flames. He said, "No matter. A life is a life, take the money with my blessing. I thanked him for his generosity. I know that he truly feels what I feel.

So, that is the story of how I became a high flyer. No, that's a poor choice of words since I know that I will never fly again. Rather, that is the story of how I became a real high roller. But speaking of flying, this story has a double happy ending in that the airlines will keep on flying and I 'm proud to have contributed $1,350,000 to that cause.

Please don't be envious of my good fortune. The chances are pretty good that you can be a winner just like me. After all, airport security is about as bad now as it was on September 11th and terrorists seem to be everywhere and nowhere. Don't worry, the chances are better now than they have ever been that someone you love will be dispatched to the promised land in a plane crash or some act of terrorism. Bingo, $224,000 and life in the lap of luxury will be yours. Allah be praised, America is truly a great country. Trust me.

Heartfelt thanks to my dearest Uncle Sam. God bless America.



[Comment 2]

Please send this to the New York Times.



[Comment 3]

Everyone needs to see this. you must send this to every newspaper in the city (and the country)
this was SO well said

[Comment 4]

Actually I'm glad I read that, because I thought the relatives where getting more money than the average plane crash victim and soldier. Now I know that they are getting about what a plane crash victim or a widow/widower of military personal gets, if a little less.

But why from the Feds? Because the airlines don't want to pay. Of course, then there is no incentive to bother with more security at airports and they continue to lobby for more loop-holes to 'delay' implementation. The airlines will just let the Feds pay for not only compensation, but the security too. How convenient for them.

I say lets let a whole new set of airlines take over the nations skys, I couldn't care if the old ones go under. If there is a market, someone will fill it. America will not come to an end because 3000 people sued three airline companies who still doesn't care to offer safety and has been fighting it since before Lockerbie

But back to the survivors. It all sounds like the math is close to typical. But lets hold up one minute here! The original article in this thread didn't address that huge fund that the Red Cross (RC) is managing. So, not only does some random person in N.J. get what a soldier gets, but they get to ask the RC for anything else. But no, its a better windfall than that. Everything that is a cost to the victims gets sent to the RC for 'help' and then the $$ from the feds comes just for having been related to a victim. All without the trouble of a lawyer nor any time contributing to helping to establish in a court who is responsible for security at airports.

So we have, Airlines getting bailed out by the Feds with no incentive for airlines to take charge of improving their security situation. Plus, accident survivors get more money than they need from both charity and the government. Sorry, the whole thing is the wrong way to go.

I'm glad I didn't give more than a few bits of loose change to the money strapped Red Cross for this fund, just so they can be in a weird situation of trying to raise money for disaster work, but have 10's of millions of dollars targeted for a particular group that is already getting lots of money from other sources.

My suggestion to the survivors? Apply for every cent you
can from the RC Fund, then donate it back to the Red Cross, because they certainly need the money and the tax deduction more than everyone else since between your private resources, the Feds and the Red Cross Fund you are now guaranteed to have a multimillion dollar bank account when this is all over.

Signed,
-"no fan of compensation from the Red Cross or the Feds"





[Comment 5]

I am outraged at that last post. I had to read it twice to actually believe that someone could be so closed-minded and ignorant to write such a thing.

First of all, lets get one thing straight, these people are not "accident survivors" because this was no accident. The 4 hijacked planes killed about 3,000 people that morning did not do so accidentally. This was an attack on our country. The airlines were asleep at the switch (I'd like to know who was on a coffee break when 4 planes disappeared from the radar screen all at the same time), we are not suing the airlines because the government does not want them to be sued, they are not being held accountable because the government does not want them to be held accountable. It will cost too much money, and no one really cares all that much, lets be honest. Everyone wants to be able to fly somewhere for $2 round trip, what do you expect, you get what you pay for. These courageous Americans are not being given "more money than they need", they are being given less than 1/8 of what other real airplane 'accident' victims have been given in the past and told that that is all that they deserve for watching their loved ones murdered on international television. All in the interest of preserving the airline industry. This was terrorism, it happened here because our government thought that we were invincible, well, these families are paying the price for years of bad government policies. And still, they are not being treated fairly. If you can't see that then its because you just don't want to.

Second of all you need to understand that the Red Cross fund is a charity, it was given out of the kindness of the hearts of the American people, and for that the families are grateful &nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp. If you paid attention to any of the families on the news you would have heard them thanking the American people for grieving with them, and for opening their hearts and giving to them. But, I don't think that you listened because you were too busy taking note of square footage, are you jealous, did you really read the first message in this thread? Listen up, no one is becoming a millionaire from the red cross fund.





[Comment 6]

Let me just state one unemotional fact to correct your assessment of what those affected by 9/11 are receiving from the American Red Cross. Yesterday, the head of the American Red Cross held a press conference where he stated that on average families will receive $108,000 from the Red Cross as a result of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Please note that $108,000 does not equal $1,000,000.


As well, this piece of legislation that includes the Victims' Compensation Fund was passed on 9/22/01. I'm sure at that time (only 11 days after the attacks), many of the victims' families held some kind of hope that their loved ones would be found alive or were in deep mourning over their losses. No reason to attack these families...they never asked for this fund.

Lastly, this past week a woman sued Starbuck's because a cappuccino maker exploded,severely burning her hand. She was awarded approximately $3 million because of this.

Please understand the situation before you comment. Thank you.




[Comment 6]

I believe that some of the WTC Fund backlash is being cause by misleading or outright erroneous statements carried in the news media.

The first is that the estimated average payments will be $1.65 million a person. The fact is that no detailed estimates can be made until the amount of pensions, life insurance and social security is known and it is not clear from the Masters' statements whether or not he reserves the right to reduce the proposed amount by charitable deductions. The one thing that is clear is that the $ 1.65 million can not be the average payout. So why publish it? To win the spin war?

Another misleading statement is that the fund represents the generous gift of the tax payers. There is a general misunderstanding of the reason the Victims' Fund was established. It was established to bail out the airlines, not because of generosity to the victims. The Fund is part of the airline bailout bill which gave $15.5 billion to the airlines and takes the extraordinary step of denying, (after the fact no less) the victims the right to sue for damages. Many folks might feel that this, probably unconstitutional, law really doesn't change much because we know that Osama is at fault. Yes, he should be sued for every last penny he has, but, others parties may bear a significant level of responsibility, which would have been addressed in courts of law had this right not been abolished.

Even though courts can make mistakes and can be misused in abusive ways, they would allow the victims to redress their grievances. The threat of airline hijackings has been around for a long time and, by now, one would think that the airplanes would have been designed to be more hijack resistant, . . . sealed cockpits, . . . to be smarter . . . eye scans etc. Likewise, the air control systems did little or nothing to discourage or detect the hijacking of four airlines. The airport security systems seemed to be more for show than to serve as a reasonable deterrent. And it has come to light that our Federal crime prevention agencies had left much to be desired. It seems our government agencies and many others may bare part of the blame. Yet its is almost as if the &nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp is taunting or jeering at the victims that the Airline bailout bill has left the them with no choice but to take it or leave it.

The distribution of the fund can be improved in several ways. The element of the Fund which represents the economic damages should be awarded on the basis of what a reasonable court might award. I would expect that these awards would be conservative but awarding at 10 cents on the dollar is something else.

If the "bereavement" component were increased so that it becomes the most significant portion of the award, gaps between well off and struggling families would be narrowed. In addition I believe that this component should also be shared with parents and siblings as well as spouses and children. If necessary, laws might have to be changed to reflect the human dimensions of 9/11

This is not to say that I am ungrateful for the unprecedented donations to the Red Cross and many other charitable funds; if it were not for these gifts my mother would be looking at eviction. What I am saying is that the Fund is a business deal done to avoid crushing the airlines with lawsuits over their negligent failure to make good faith attempts to deter hijackings. It should not crush the victims in order to accomplish its objective.



[Comment 7]

WTC Families Want Fairness,
Not Riches




Much that has been written about families seeking compensation under the Sept. 11 Victim Compensation Fund is based on misinformation and misunderstanding. E.R. Shipp's piece in the Daily News on Jan. 20, characterizing the families as greedy, was one. I would like to bring some clarity to our position.

The public has been led to believe that families will receive an average of $1.6 million. That figure is before offsets. Most families will receive considerably less. Fully a third are projected to receive nothing.

Far from reaching $6 billion in payouts, economists project the cost will be about $2 billion - much less than $10 per taxpayer.

The legislation that created the fund awarded the airlines $5 billion for their losses and another $10 billion for other benefits, yet the press and public have made no outcry against this. The victims were innocent of blame. Can the same be said of the airlines? And let it not be forgotten that the victims were taxpayers, too - many at the high end - and so the accusation that the money is a gift is inaccurate.

The airlines were not the only businesses protected. Aircraft manufacturers, the World Trade Center buildings' owner - the Port Authority - and others whose negligence may have contributed in some way to Sept. 11 all were afforded protection.

Some members of Congress have said this was done because no one was at fault but the terrorists. The families ask, how did Congress make that determination Sept. 22, without benefit of any investigation? Whether there was negligence remains to be seen, but by capping their liability, Congress and the businesses who asked for protection made a tacit admission that negligent conduct on a number of fronts was likely.

Families regard the fund, in part, as an admission of our government's culpability. For this reason, and because their right to litigate was impaired by the bailout, families believe that Congress felt an ethical need to create the fund and a need for families to be fairly compensated under its provisions. But the legislation was poorly drafted and rushed through without benefit of public hearings. As a result, families find themselves caught in the middle of several controversies.

Some members of the public regard the fund as a safety net, yet the legislation's stated purpose is to compensate the victims and be a substitute for litigation. It could be assumed, therefore, that victims would be awarded amounts that have some relation to conventional lawsuits. In fact, the wording tracks with conventional wrongful-death and survival statutes. Yet the special master, Kenneth Feinberg, has taken it upon himself to minimize the amounts at every conceivable opportunity.

The public wonders why the families challenge these rulings. We do so because we believe they do not follow the letter of the law and override the legislative intent. We did not draft this law; we do, however, feel justified in asking for an objective, rather than punitive, interpretation.

One controversy is Feinberg's ruling that noneconomic damages (pain and suffering, emotional distress, loss of companionship, loss of enjoyment of life) be limited to $250,000. Although it's difficult to place a value on these elements, families are deeply offended by this sum. It fails to acknowledge the horrible deaths suffered by the victims. It fails to recognize the terrible impact that death has on the survivors, who must face the future without a father, a daughter, a wife. And because of the offsets, for so many families, even this component is reduced to near zero.

The fund is not a safety net when it grants large sums to families who were not dependent on the victim in contrast to widows with children.

This is not about greed, it's about equity. In light of this, some families have proposed that the same amount should be awarded across the board. This solution has a certain appeal. Truly, a life is a life, and the suffering is something the families all share equally. But sadly, the law as written probably doesn't allow for this option.

The families aren't expecting large awards, but simply are asking for an accurate interpretation of the law on economic damages and also an equitable - and compassionate - assessment of noneconomic damages.

And be very sure of this: no matter what the award, any victim's family would gladly trade places with those members of the public who have been so critical. We would give anything to be where they are, instead of where we are. If only we could.



I believe you have one more chance to get it right, if not this will become the Teapot Dome Scandal of the Bush Administration.



Individual Comment
Newton MA

2002-02-22