N001887
Wednesday, January 16, 2002 12:45 PM
comments regarding interim ruling
The events of Sept 11, are unparalleled in US history. The scale of
destruction and grief while seemingly unimaginable are profoundly real for
many Americans.
My brother was killed at WTC on 9/11. I closely followed how events unfolded
on every front as our country responded to the attack. The actions of
leaders from the President and his officers, the Mayor of NYC and others has
been tremendous. The American people have become proud again of each other
and their country. A glaring exception to the rule has been the handling of
the Victims Compensation Fund.
As I waited for the ruling to be published my gut feeling was that the DOJ
would handle the ruling with the dignity this unparalleled event merits. I
had the feeling that because the attack was an extraordinary symbolic attack
on the spirit of America the response in support of those affected would be
reciprocative in scale. I was deeply disappointed.
I purposely waited these few weeks before responding to the ruling because
the special masters ruling angered me to the point of distraction. I found
the tone and language callous and dangerously out of touch with the context
of the event. The ruling felt like another blow, more fallout from the
attack.
I share the interpretation of many regarding the priorities of special master
as spelled out in the interim ruling. Specifically:
The airline bailout act gave the airlines $15 billion of taxpayers' money and
capped the airlines' liability for the 9/11 crashes at the limits of their
insurance coverage. It set up the Fund so the airlinesâ?? bailout would not
come at the expense of the victimsâ?? families.
DOJ has ignored the fundamental mandate of the act to provide full and fair
compensation to victims and their families, and instead created a formulaic
federal program based on irrelevant concepts more familiar to the
bureaucracy.
The DOJ's proposed awards for non-economic damages ($250,000 per victim plus
$50,000 for a spouse and each dependent) are only one-tenth the level paid in
comparable cases. For example, a spouse was awarded $5 million in
non-economic damages in a lawsuit arising out of Lockerbie.
Congress explicitly enumerated a broad range of non-economic damages for
which victims and their families shall be compensated.
DOJ ignored this, and based its presumed awards on a military group life
insurance program (SGLI) with a maximum policy of $250,000, and a federal
statute providing $250,000 to families of fallen public safety officersâ??on
top of other amounts they may receive.
DOJ's approach assumes that Congress intended the non-economic damages to be
illusory, because a $250,000 SGLI payment for a serviceman killed at the
Pentagon would wipe out those damages under the collateral offset
requirement.
DOJâ??s proposed awards for economic damages grossly underestimate actual
losses, because DOJ relied on outdated, inapplicable work-life and life-cycle
earnings data. Forensic economists have discovered other serious flaws in
DOJâ??s methodology.
DOJ underestimates promotions and other increases in earnings for victims. It
relied on federal civil service and military retirement system boards that
track federal worker incomes and pension requirements, not the higher-paying
private sector career paths.
DOJâ??s reliance on past 3 years of income (which the Special Master â??may
averageâ??) looks suspiciously like a federal pension approach, rather than
considering the likely income-earning potential of the decedent, as is
routinely done in wrongful death cases.
The regulations arbitrarily cap a victimâ??s income at $225,000 a year, cutting
some familiesâ?? compensation by over 50%. As a result, many widows will have
to sell their homes, deplete their childrenâ??s college funds, and give up
their plans of being full-time parents while their children are young.
A familyâ??s award may be increased above the â??presumptiveâ?? award only by a
showing of â??extraordinary circumstancesâ??â??beyond those suffered by other
victims or victimsâ?? families. This makes the hearing or appeal to the Special
Master a mere charade.
The low levels of the presumptive awards will result in many family members
receiving little or nothing from the Fund, once the collateral source
deductions (which are not required in a court case) are made.
DOJ should fulfill, rather than flout, the actâ??s intent by revising its rules
to compensate victims and their families for the types of damages specified
by Congress, at levels comparable to those provided in the tort system the
Fund was designed to replace.
I am thinking that perhaps the special master is unaware of the level of
achievement and the personal characteristics of so many of the victims. It
seems that this ignorance and lack of empathy resulted in the sadly
unacceptable version of the ruling that is currently on the table.
As Representative King said:
"They were the symbols of American capitalism, the symbols of American
business, and they were murdered because of what they were,"... "Now they
shouldn't be deprived of what they're entitled to."
The interim ruling is grievously flawed in my opinion. My family and I are
wondering about the thinking. To us it communicates cluelessness about the
value of a human life. The rhetoric of the special master rings hollow, the
response given to those whose loved ones were murdered is painfully
inadequate. In the context of responses from the President and the Mayor,
Senator Clinton, etc., the special master's ruling comes across as a lame,
ill conceived trap that forces victims to suffer further. It is not at all a
dignified attempt to respond to the murder of 3000 Americans working at the
symbolic heart of America.
Thanks for your attention
Individual Comment
Philadelphia, PA