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. Wednesday, January 16, 2002 4:26 PM Comments on Interim Final Rule January 16, 2001 Kenneth L. Zwick Director, Office of Management Programs Civil Division U.S. Department of Justice Main Building Room 3140 950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW Washington, DC 20530 Re: Comments on the Interim Final Rule I appreciate being given an opportunity to comment on the Interim Final Rules. I am a 69 year-old father who lost a 30 year-old son at the World Trade Center. A son that would have provided me with much love, happiness and comfort in my twilight years. There is no amount of money in the world that could ever compensate me for that loss of affection. The Interim Final Rules are a step in the right direction. They try to take a very complex legal problem and simplify it. I commend the Special Master for trying to eliminate the need for victims' families to go through a long complicated and expensive legal process. Unfortunately, in trying to reach this idealistic goal, the Interim Final Rules totally ignore the law that was enacted by the Congress and signed into law by the President. Congress did not intend that the non-economic loss of the victims of the terrorists attacks be equated to "roughly equivalent to the amounts received under existing federal programs by public safety officers who are killed while on duty or members of our military who are killed in the line of duty." If Congress intended to do this they would have put it into law. In layman terms what Congress did say was . . . We have to bail out the airlines in order to salvage our economy by enacting the The Airline Stabilization Act. We will also ensure that the airlines remain solvent by protecting them from any litigation resulting from their failure to provide a safe transportation system by enacting the "Victim's Compensation Fund". In the eyes of Congress the "Victim's Compensation Fund" was intended to fairly compensate the victims and their families for their tragic losses and eliminate lawsuits against the airlines and the government. However something happened between the Law and the Rules. Congress said that the victims' families should be compensated for 12 different categories of non-economic loss such as pain and suffering etc., etc. The Special Master said no . . . "give them the same $250,000 that anyone in the military service would get for loss of life". But isn't this comparing "apples and oranges"? A military person would be awarded $250,000 for loss of life whether that loss of life is in combat, by natural death or by accident. That same military person or that person's family could also- - - - - Purchase additional life insurance for amounts in excess of $250,000 without any of the excess amounts being deducted from what his or her survivors would receive. Not so with the victims of September 11, 2001. All insurance proceeds by law are deducted. - - - - Collect the $250,000 in insurance and then also bring a lawsuit against an airline or a third party for wrongful death. Not so for the victims of September 11, 2001. If they accept the award of the Special Master, they are prohibited by law to litigate. The final result of the Interim Rule is not fair and just to those who have lost a loved one on September 11, 2001. The intentions of Congress in enacting the law and the intentions of the President of the United States in signing the law clearly indicate that the victims should be treated on the same basis as one who brought suit against the airlines or government. The non-economic loss suffered by the victims of this horrific event should be less than the amounts that would be obtained by victims that have to litigate through a long and expensive process. That is the tradeoff for a speedy decision and no expensive litigation fees. However that tradeoff shouldn't result in extraordinarily low awards to victims' families. Much has been made in the media about the average award being $1.65 million dollars. This number is truly misleading and doesn't take into consideration the collateral offsets required by the statute. Since many insurance awards are doubled because the tragedy resulted in accidental deaths while the victims were at work, these insurance awards are substantial. The average payoff will probably be considerably less than half of the $1.65 million that was released to the media. The net result is also substantially less than jury awards in airline wrongful death cases. In New Mexico in 1994, a jury awarded $2.9 million in damages to a woman who was burned when she spilled a cup of coffee she had purchased at a drive-through window at a McDonald's Restaurant. I am sure that the woman involved suffered much pain from the hot coffee. I am also sure that the pain has long since gone away. The pain of losing a loved one on September 11th is much more substantial than a spill from hot coffee. The pain of the families of the victims from the tragedy of September 11 will last through their entire lifetimes. The $250,000 in non-economic losses proposed by the Special Master contradicts the law and the intention of Congress. The non-economic loss should be established at a level of at least $1,000,000. This would be considerably less than an amount awarded in a wrongful death lawsuit for non-economic losses in an airline disaster. It would also go a long way toward bringing equality between the awards to low-income victims and those victims that enjoyed higher salaries. Thank you for considering the above comments. I hope that you will seriously consider a substantial increase in the non-economic loss award. If you need additional information I can be contacted at . Sincerely, Individual Comment Schenectady, NY September 11 Email: Date The local time and date when the message was written. 2002-01-16 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 dojN001904.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. 2002-01-16