N002118
Sunday, January 20, 2002 1:42 PM
Help the victims
It is with a disappointed and heavy heart that I write this letter to you.
I am a good friend of the family; and their husband and father, was a good friend to me, my
best friend, for the 18 years that I knew him. He worked hard all his life
to obtain his goals and finally had those goals in sight when terrorist took
his life on September 11, 2001. He was in his office, at his desk, doing
his job as a bond trader and the terrorist that killed him attacked him
because he was the very strength of America: its economy. was the
type of person that the terrorist wanted to kill, someone who made the
American economy move.
left behind a loving wife and two young children that will only know
him through the stories of family and friends. His wife's pain is and
suffering are a heavy burden to bear, and I know this because I have watched
her bear it for the past four months.
worked hard because he wanted to take care of his wife and family, he
wanted his children to grow up in a comfortable home, go to college and
become as successful as he was becoming. I am proud of the manner in which
my friend cared for his family, but I am not proud of the way in which my
government chooses to support the victims of the undeclared war against our
country. The logic of the Special Master is flawed and does not justly
compensate the victims. How does he arrive at the conclusion that
non-economic damages (i.e. pain & suffering) are equal to $250,000 for the
decedent and $50,000 for each surviving person when juries award larger sums
to people that break a hip tripping on a sidewalk? The pain and suffering
of the victim's families are unprecedented from the attack on September
11th, the monies chosen by the Special Master to compensate the victim's
families for this pain and suffering are unremarkable.
Equally unprecedented is his decision to use collateral offsets, such as
pension and life insurance to diminish the compensation for potential loss
of earnings. Life insurance is earned by paying premiums and should have no
effect on the compensation given by the victims compensation fund.
Finally, the calculation of the compensation for potential loss of earnings
makes no sense. How does he arbitrarily exclude earnings for 2001? Earning
for 2001 should not be excluded, they should be prorated so that they are
representative of a full year, not nine months. How does the Special Master
decide to put an arbitrarily cap on the earnings of people that worked in
the financial industry so that it becomes equal to those that did not? This
appears to be an attempt to make all things equal in a situation where they
clearly are not.
Americans have shown that we support the victims of September 11th. We have
donated to charities that represent them, we wear flag pins on our lapels to
show our solidarity, and we stood behind the President's decision to use
military action against the terrorist and those who support them. Our
government now has the opportunity to show them that we care once more.
Instead we ask hem the victims' families to give up their right to a fair
civil trial and offer them little in return. I have seen family
suffer enough because of what our enemies have done; I don't want to see
them suffer because of what my government fails to do. The children of
September 11th will grow up knowing that their parents died national heroes,
please don't let them grow up knowing that their government treated them
like something less.
Individual Comment