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. Monday, March 25, 2002 5:35 PM service loss in death cases My name is and I am a volunteer with Trial Lawyers Care representing approximately 6 victims. In the course of reviewing the final regulations on economic loss I note that there is no explicit discussion of serivce loss. The only reference is contained on page 11 of 27 where it states that "It is relevant to note comments suggesting that the economic loss calculations fail to incorporate sufficiently replacement servies loss. The Special Master recognizes that such losses are variable, and thus claimants may present at a hearing indivualized data to support a departure from the presumed award". It would appear to me that this does not provide for appropriate standards of review for submission of such data. The regulations should explicitly recognize service loss and commit to compensating for it. This is an element of pecuniary loss in wrongful death cases in virtually every jurisdiction. It should not be relegated in the regulations to a possible category of damages that would depart from a "presumed award". Service loss is not an element of consortium or pain and suffering. Service loss is seperate and distinct from wage losss. It is a real element of pecuniary loss under wrongful death statutes and is capable of valuation under standard accepted principles of economics. The loss of a husband, wife , father or mother always involves as an element of economic loss the services the surviving family members lost. The failure to recognize this element of damages suggests that the Special Master can ignore it or fail to factor it in as an element of economic damages. Leaving it as a vague reference in the regulations will cause unfair results. Many victims who do not have assistance of counsel may not understand that this is an aspect of damages to submit information on. Lay people do not understand damages in wrongful death cases and would have no idea that service loss is compensable. Lay people would not understand how to present the loss. Compensation for service loss should not hinge on the sophistication of the victim or the imagination of their lawyer. Why should some receive compensation and others not? Why should awarding any damages for service loss be left up to the discretion of the Special Master? What factors will guide his decisionmaking process? It would also be helpful to provide for the range of services that the Special Master will recognize as compensable and to provide recognized valuation figures to be utilized in computing it. This would assure uniformity of awards. Over what period of time will the Special Master recognize these awards? Who is eligible? All of these issues should be addressed so that victims can understand what moneys they are eligible for. This element of damages is especially important to families with children that lost a parent. If the Special Master is going to deduct the economic value of collateral source benefits from an award because of statutory mandates, it should also prescribe inclusion of all elements of economic loss in an award to make sure the victim is made whole. Your guidance on this issue will be of enormous assistance to families and their victims. Individual Comment September 11 Email: Date The local time and date when the message was written. 2002-03-25 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 dojR002720.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. 2002-03-25