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. To: Sept. 11 Victims Compensation Fund, US DOJ, Washington, D.C. Sent By Fax to (301) 519-5956 Dated: December 26, 2001 RE: Corrments on the Proposed Regs. on the Definition of Physical Harm in Section 104.2 I would like to pose a question on a particular part of the above proposed regs, suggest a proposed answer to that question and suggest proposed modifications and thoughts on what should be in the final regs for the definition of "Physical Harm" Section 104.2. I am specifically referring to the requirement that a claimant must have sought medical help within 24 hours of the incident. Query-Does that 24 hours requirement operate as an absolute bar to recovery, does it serve as a presumption or to move or burden of proof or is it intended as something else? I would suggest that it definitely not serve as an absolute bar to recovery but, preferably, serve as a so-called positive presumption, i.e., if an otherwise qualifed claimant sought medical help with 24 hours, causation is presumed and not an issue. Moreover, the first 72 hours or so after Sept. 11th were quite chaotic particularly in all of the directly affected locales. All the hospitals here were geared up for emergency aid for what turned out to be a small number of survivors and everyone else was strongly discouraged from going to any emergency facilities. Even in the best of times, it is quite difficult to get to see a physician on very short notice, i.e., on what would have been not much later than between 10:00 and 11:00 A.M. on the next day, Sept. 12th. I cannot conceive that you intend to permanently bar claimants (many of whom did not make it home until quite late on Sept. 11th) who did not seek medical help until the afternoon on Sept. 12th or, perhaps, until say 11:30 A.M. that morning. Given that an absolute 24 hours time requirement would hardly serve the interests of justice, one should ask what time standards, if any, should be used? Let me suggest that there be no absolute time bar at all. Moreover, given the circumstances on the ground at the time, one should use a 72 or perhaps 48 time frame and use it as positive presumption in the manner that that term is used above. Every claimant should have an opportunity to prove direct and proximate causation beyond a reasonable cause. Of course, the greater the time lag between injury and treatment, the harder that will be to prove and the time issue will continue to be quite relevant. However, you should not create any bright line narrow time test, as that will certainly deny justice to those who could not or would not, for whatever reason, seek medical assistance in compliance with that narrow time requirement. In the aftermath of Sept. 11, many people were immoblilized and not functioning well or at all for days. Why penalize them now? Note that I am sending this fax because I could not get onto you comment website last night. Please regular mail (I have no faith in your e-mail) a full copy of both the proposed and final regs when they become available and two sets of any and all eligibility and application forms and publications. Thank you and good luck on this endeavor. Individual Comment September 11 Email: Date The local time and date when the message was written. 2001-12-26 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 dojN001172.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. 2001-12-26