Jun 11, 2004
7:36 pm US/Eastern (1010
WINS)(WASHINGTON)The fund for victims of the Sept. 11 attacks
has already agreed to pay out nearly $6 billion as the unprecedented
program nears its final day of operation next week.
The fund
has paid or authorized payments totaling $5.8 billion, fund
officials said Friday. Fund workers are rushing to complete all of
their work before the fund's final day of operation on
Tuesday.
The fund was created by Congress after the terrorist
attacks to compensate those injured and the families of those
killed, and to protect the airlines and other U.S. entities from
potentially crippling litigation.
More than 7,000 claims were
filed with the fund.
As of Friday, 2,425 death claim payments
have been made or authorized. With about 90 other death claims
rejected or withdrawn, that leaves about 400 claims still to be
processed.
After receiving 4,429 injury claims, the fund has
rejected 1,651, or more than a third. Officials have determined
injury awards for 2,334 injury claims, and have several hundred
still to complete.
"The process has been exhaustive, and
seemingly exhausting," said Perry Binder, a professor at Georgia
State University's Robinson College of Business who has tracked the
fund's progress.
The average payout to families of deceased
victims has consistently edged upward since the program's inception,
and now stands at just above $2 million, while the median is $1.7
million. The largest presumed award is more than $7
million.
Injury payments have ranged from as little as $500
to as high as $8.6 million, which was recently awarded to a
33-year-old woman crushed by debris at the World Trade
Center.
While the overwhelming majority of victims' families
have enrolled in the fund for compensation, a small minority have
opted instead to file lawsuits charging negligence by airlines,
security companies, and other U.S. entities in failing to prevent
the terror attacks.
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