The “Last” of The 9/11 Victim Families Sue For Reparations

Sep 6, 2007 2:34 PM

“Blood Money” - A Culture of Reparations

It was front page news in Tuesday’s NY Times, as well as The Boston Herald. Exactly six years after the 9/11 attacks which have forever changed America, forty one of the families directly affected by the loss of a relative are trying to mediate their claims for damages. Defendants range from United and American Airlines to MassPort and the security companies involved, and many others. Unable to collect what they considered rightful financial reparations, or persuaded in at least one case by professional ambulance chasers like Mary Schiavo (former D.O.T. Inspector General) to hold out for more, all forty one remaining parties will try to mediate this week and next before their case goes to court. A call to MassPort yielded a “no comment” response. In MassPort’s position, I don’t suppose I would have even said that much.

As pointed out by the New York Times, if the 9/11 commission has outlined the list of parties “responsible,” then logic dictates that the combined group owes 100% of the damages. But what will be the judgment? Several of the families have apparently already collected life insurance and “terrorist insurance,” in the case of one flight attendant. Most of the remaining unsettled cases involve victims with no dependents – elderly, or children. Government compensation through the 9/11 “Victim Compensation Fund” averaged $2 million, so does that set a precedent? Or has this just become a contest of relative worth, one human being to another, as viewed by grieving plaintiffs?

One of the airline victims, 11 year old Asia Cottom has a family involved in this round of litigation. While it’s easy to empathize with the family’s grief (solid evidence of which is visible on terroristattack.com, the Asia Cottom website,) it’s also worth asking whether there is really any way to compensate the Cottoms or any other family who had a direct brush with this awful tragedy. And what is accomplished? If MassPort is ordered to forfeit millions, is the world a better place? MassPort will charge us all to make it up. As a nation we’ve already paid an enormous penalty in airport security charges, and in fact MassPort has arguably overreacted with security to the point that six years later one of its suburban airports (Bedford, MA) can’t even bear this cost. The cost of 9/11 to the world is a staggering sum, and reflected in airports, train and bus terminals all over the world as a new economic fact of life.

How can a culture survive if it always expects someone to pay? And how do public officials continue to conduct their business if the “Sword of Damocles” is wielded not justifiably after they’ve directly injured, but against them as hapless “collateral victims” for a string of events precipitated by professional assassins? Are world shattering events like 9/11 even the fault of the souls that last saw people board an airplane or ascend the World Trade Towers, and should they be made to pay for tragedies which even the brightest and most informed among us didn’t forecast?

As the 9/11 tragedy continues to unfold, first in Afghanistan, then in Iraq, there are other families who’ve lost children too. Just ask the Hubbard family of Buchanan, CA. Two of their three sons died in Iraq – one to a roadside explosion, the other in the crash of a Blackhawk helicopter. To the best of my knowledge they are not appealing to the 9/11 commission, Mary Schiavo, nor the Federal Government. They don’t expect any financial “reparations” from United Airlines for two thirds of their irreplaceable progeny. They continue to forge ahead, with prayers that all will eventually be put right in Iraq. There is a lesson here for the survivors of 9/11 victims, whether they wish to accept it or not. Death is an inescapable conclusion of life. While we may share the grief of the 9/11 families, there simply isn’t any reason why the rest of us should be forced through litigation to share our finances. The only person who should really pay is still at large in the caves of Afghanistan or Pakistan. - FCG

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