Posted on 06/04/2004 7:57:33 AM PDT by Hillary's Lovely Legs
A lot of insurance plans cap out, typically somewhere over $1m. Check your's out. Her med bills are already up to $4M and it sounds like they will continue for more years as they reconstruct her crushed body.
The $8M sounds like a fair award considering what she went through and will continue to go through for the rest of her life. Just say a prayer for her.
This woman's predicament, on a third reading, seems right for the med bills and the lost wage. When I read, "Pain and Suffering" the first thought is, "ambulance chasing lawyers".
Has our culture been reduced to that, that the first thought is litigation and court awards? Will they sue the estate of Mohammed Atah for compensation?
I'm glad the 9-11 Fund exists. But as little as $500? When did THAT happen?
It would be pointless to suethe Estate of Osama Bin Laden in court, but I do think it might be reasonable to get some serious asset seizure activities underway to pay for it all.
If our CIA cannot track down Osama's millions, and vacuum it out from under him, what do we have a CIA for?
No. (Good point.)
I agree with you 100% - I am a lawyer but don't practice law. I share your mindset - attorney hustlers have damaged the system.
The goal is to make the harmed victim whole again. Somewhere along the line it became a lottery, where juries started doling out huge sums of money, with no regard where the money came from (us, that is!)
The lawyers are a big part of the problem. So is the mindset of the jury pool.
This really needs fixing!
This is beyond ridiculous. Since taxpayer money grows on trees, let's go ahead and compensate the handful of living Titanic survivors, Andrea Doria survivors, Pearl Harbor survivors, OKC bombing victims, car accident victims, etc.
Guy Smiley, that his parents would do that to him is the real crime in this story.
As to the damages, I have a hard time discussing personal injury awards with conservative non-lawyers since there are so many misconceptions floating around about the civil jury system. And while I have many issues with the 9/11 victim's compensation fund, in this case the award is justified and the idea that this woman won some kind of lottery is ridiculous.
The government is not liable to the victims on 9/11. President Bush set up a victim's compensation fund mainly to be an insurer of last resort since it was likely that the flood of litigation against third parties and municipal entitities would bankrupt them and their insurers. Further, this system also takes the 1/3 recovery of lawyers out of the picture, a huge gripe of conservatives.
The claimants who opt to take these awards forgo their right to sue the third parties, in exchange they get their money quickly and without litigation, appeals and costly attorney's fees. This woman is exactly who the fund was meant for and I personally wish her well and hope she can use the money to one day lead a normal life.
My issue with the fund is that the families of the victims who died that day have become fairly wealthy due to life insurance and worker's compensation payouts. Most of their awards from life insurance and worker's comp hovering in the $2 million range. Certainly, a bonus payment from the government is gratuitous.
The problem faced by the Bush administration was that if there was an offset in fund payments for worker's comp and life insurance, the 3,000 families of the deceased would forgo the fund and take their chances in court, which is exactly what the President did not want to happen. So it's the ultimate catch-22.
Further complicating the issue is that if the deceased's families did take their chances in court, the worker's comp insurers would be entitled to an offset. So logic dictates that the fund should include it as well. However, the likely jury awards would have been staggering partiucularly against the companies that provided security at Logan, Newark and Reagan airports, such that any benefit to the worker's comp insurers would minimal compared to the litigation costs and awards against the third parties.
Therefore, President and the fund administrators decided to err on the side of caution and not include an offset in the payout. When one looks at the overall economics, I suspect this was a wise move.
Tort Reform. Is it a canard for re-election, or a hope for the future?
I'm just a soldier; I have no answers.
The donated money is what she's receiving.
I don't think the US is "liable" This wasn't a lawsuit. She merely applied for the compensation out of a fund that was set up for that purpose after 9/11.
I'd still like to know what happen to that billion + dollars that went into a Red Cross 9/11 specific fund.
Can you clarify, please?. I thought there was indeed, and offset..
Question is, would she change places with a military wife whose husband just got killed even though she personally is unharmed, for the paltry sum of 200,000 ?
Somehow I think that didn't come out right. Oh well, someone will understand it I guess. Even if I have forgotten what my point was.
If I remember correctly, the surgeons had to really work to even save her legs. They wanted her to be able to dance at her wedding.
Your math may be correct but since this woman isn't going back to work any time soon and some of the award covers loss of earning capacity, past and future medical care and pain and suffering in addition to lost wages, it's your assumptions that are wrong.
We seem to have an elevated view of our worth and value to the planet and the universe.
Thanks for the clarification...
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