dojW000309.xml

dojW000309.xml

born-digital

email

yes

no

2001-11-11

Sunday, November 11, 2001 5:50 PM
September 11th Victim Compensation Fund

November 11, 2001

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

RE: CIV 104P; AG Order No. RIN: 1105-AA79
September 11th Victim Compensation Fund of 2001

Dear Mr. Zwick:

I am a September 11th widow. As someone who is experiencing first-hand the bureaucratic nightmare generated by variants in private and public aid institutions, I implore you to consider this - that the Victims Compensation Fund as currently written alludes to a series of economic and non-economic criteria (undefined). While commenting on what is not known is difficult at best, I offer these concerns:

Collateral subtracted from compensation punishes those families of victims who paid for policies and benefits and Federal programs out of their salaries, who lived within their means and saved and whose surviving family members have already struggled to receive help from an array of charity funds whose donations were intended by the American people to be distributed to those families regardless of circumstance.

There is no consideration of the amount of income contribution or benefits (such as health insurance) that have been lost.

The relative pain and suffering of the victims cannot and should not be quantified in these circumstances; to attempt to do so is wildly inappropriate.

The administrative cost of information gathering, verification, documentation, and evaluation required to implement this process would proportionately reduce the funds available to the families and put them (yet again) through unnecessary bureaucracy.
The requirement to accept the offer in lieu of pursuing a lawsuit prior to knowing the dollar amount of the payment is egregious and unfair.

The possibility of subjective evaluations raises the potential of inequity and places the burden of proof on those seeking some sort of help.

For all these reasons, I urge you to abandon the arbitrary set of criteria set forth in the rules and regulations and simply divide the total into equal cash payments to every applicant. Otherwise, I believe that this Act will spawn the hundreds, perhaps thousands of lawsuits it seeks to avoid.

Sincerely,

Individual Comment

2001-11-11