Last-minute applications pour into 9/11 fund

A remarkable surge of last-minute applications to the government's ambitious but much-criticized effort to compensate the relatives of Sept. 11 victims resulted in 95 percent of those eligible applying.

Officials with the federal Victim Compensation Fund, who worried just weeks ago that many eligible survivors would not sign up, said applications had come in by the hundreds as the hours to the midnight deadline wound down on Monday.

By the end of the day on Monday, federal officials proclaimed that a program that had been criticized as complicated, cold-hearted and ungenerous had successfully achieved twin goals: offering billions of dollars in compensation to families for their pain and economic loss and to injured victims as well, while protecting the airlines from potentially ruinous litigation.

Only a month ago, the fund had received applications from about 1,800 families, or only 60 percent of those eligible, on behalf of relatives killed in 2001 at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and aboard the airplane that crashed in Pennsylvania. That tepid rate, in turn, had prompted members of New York's congressional delegation to push for a one-year extension of the deadline -- a position that an overwhelming majority of families supported.

But the idea of an extension never made it out of congressional committee. And as Monday's deadline approached, people began to file in droves for several reasons, according to family members, lawyers and Kenneth R. Feinberg, the fund's administrator.

Some people outside of New York or Washington -- including a group of Mohawk Indian ironworkers from Montreal who were injured while volunteering at ground zero -- said that they first heard about the program only recently. Some victims' relatives said that they had determined that the fund, however flawed, was a surer, quicker bet than litigation against the airlines. Most, though, said that they had simply been too overwhelmed by grief and the complicated application process.

"I have more things on my plate, right now, in my life, because mom is gone," said Mary Taddei, whose mother, Nancy, worked as an administrative assistant at a financial services company at the World Trade Center and was the emotional and logistical glue of her family. "I just said, 'You know what? Forget it. I'm never going to go through that paperwork.' "

But last week, Taddei, with the help of her lawyer, Justin T. Green, of Kreindler & Kreindler, finally submitted preliminary papers, even though she cringed at the prospect of digging into the facts and finances to come up with a monetary value to replace her mother's life.

"I know that the worst is probably yet to come, just to rehash everything, because there's no dollar value for her life," she said, her voice quaking.

"It's enough that I have to live through it every day."

As of Monday evening, 2,838 people had filed at least preliminary applications on behalf of dead victims, or 95 percent. About $1.5 billion has been paid out so far, or an average $1.8 million per family, with a high of $6.9 million. Another 3,440 people had filed injury claims; the awards have ranged from $500 to $7.9 million.

In all, the fund is expected to cost taxpayers up to $3 billion, which is far less than the $5 billion that Feinberg had originally predicted.

Families now have until June 15, Feinberg said, to complete their applications -- a process that families say can be grueling, intensely personal and time-consuming.

Still, the deadline marked a major milestone in the sad, crushing aftermath of Sept. 11. Yes, there has been a lot of attention paid to the memorial at ground zero. Same thing, too, with the independent commission to investigate the attacks. But in the end, the fund may have the biggest tangible impact on the greatest number of people.

"It closes a very, very important chapter in the history of the 9/ 11 tragedy," Feinberg said. "I think that many people who filed ultimately said, 'I must try, with all the grief and heartache, to bring some degree of psychological closure to this chapter, and if I stay there and litigate, I'm not really able to bring closure to this part of my life."'

When Congress hastily passed legislation in the days after the terror attacks to create the fund as part of an airline bailout package, officials hailed the plan as a fast and straightforward alternative that would ease the trauma of thousands of families. In exchange for waiving their right to sue -- which some lawyers believed could be a protracted and even risky option -- families were promised an average payment of about $1.5 million, within four months of their completed filing.

But from the outset, the fund was beset by controversy and confusion over its rules, giving it the texture of a malleable work in progress, responsive to public pressure and subject to frequent clarifications.

Copyright C 2003 Deseret News Publishing Co.
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved.