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. Tuesday, November 06, 2001 10:07 AM Question of Whether or not awards from the September 11th Victims compensation fund should be reduced by amount of char... Dear Sir/Madam (whomever is reading this for AG Ashcroft) : The answer to the question of whether awards from the Victims Fund should be reduced by charitable donations is clearly NO. First of all the legislation that created the fund was after all a bailout of the airlines that, inter alia, capped airline liability for the four hijackings at their insurance policy limits. By compensating the victims of the WTC, the Pentagon and the PA crash the fund not only insures prompt payment to the families affected but also, and primarily, saves the corporate assets of the airline industries. Now without even discussing the economic effects of not saving the airlines, the fact remains by reducing awards by the amount of charity a victim's family received the USDOJ would effectively be using the donations of millions of Americans, and others, to underwrite its bail-out of the Airlines. Certainly this is not what the Charities or the people who donated to them intended. Secondly, by reducing the award amounts by the amounts of other collateral sources such as life insurance, Worker's compensation and pension survivor benefits, the fund is in step with collateral source rules in the various jurisdictions that would be applicable in any litigation stemming from events of September 11th. However, I cannot recall ever reading about, nor do I believe I could find if I looked, any case were an award for personal injury and/or wrongful death was ever reduced by any charitable donations the plaintiff/victim had received. A fair reading if the statute, and I have read it, would be that the fund was intended to take the place of litigation. Variation from litigation norms were expressly provided, such as waiving the claimants burden of proving liability, however, the claimant must still prove their measure of damages. The language regarding reductions of awards for monies received by collateral sources would appear to be just the application of a collateral source rule. Since, as I stated above, I believe that, no jurisdiction that applies a collateral source rule to PI and wrongful death litigation, reduced the amount of damages by any charitable amounts received, an argument could be made that reduction of the award by such amount is not authorized by the statute. Although a legitimate argument it is admittedly not the strongest of legal arguments, but in the court of public opinion (combined with the above) it is some what more compelling of an argument. Lastly, and this is the more rhetorical and political of arguments, if the Government is going to reduce the awards by the amount of charity a victim receives, will they also be looking to reduce the awards by 1/3 since the victims who opt into the fund will be eligible for free legal service from ATLA, NYSLTA and ATLA-NJ through Trial Lawyers Care. Will the reduction for charitable awards include donation of services from others looking to help. It sounds ridicules to me as well, but think of the potential sound bytes. Thank you for your attention. Sincerely, Individual Comment September 11 Email: Date The local time and date when the message was written. 2001-11-06 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 dojW000059.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. 2001-11-06