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Man is cited for 9-11 work

Cheshire resident Gary Crakes was honored this past summer for his work with victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Crakes, 51, volunteered to work with Trial Lawyers Care, an organization formed after 9/11 to provide free legal assistance to victims' families. He was honored in Boston in July by the Association of Trial Lawyers of America. (Chris Angileri / Record-Journal)

CHESHIRE — How do you put a price on someone's life?

That's a question that sometimes comes up when people learn Gary Crakes helped determine the compensation for families of 9/11 victims, but the Cheshire resident and associate professor of economics at Southern Connecticut State University doesn't see it that way.

"You have to be careful about distinguishing the value of life itself from the value of earning capacity," said Crakes, who in July was honored in Boston by the Association of Trial Lawyers of America. "What we are estimating is not the value of the life of the person, but the value of their capacity to experience earnings."

Crakes, 51, volunteered to work with Trial Lawyers Care, an organization formed after 9/11 to provide free legal assistance to victims' families. The estimates were based on victim's occupations, employment earnings and, in some cases, education. Government earning forecasts were also used.

Crakes handled about 80 cases, sometimes meeting with families or providing expertise at hearings overseen by Kenneth Feinberg, special master of the Victim's Compensation Fund. "It was, obviously, very difficult and emotional," Crakes said of the hearings.

The VCF allocated some $2.2 billion in the unprecedented payout for the 2,964 death claims and for the 4,429 injury claims. Crakes said about 98 percent of the assessments he made weren't disputed by the families, something he credited to the leadership of Feinberg.

But Crakes' work was also singled out by Feinberg and family members, said Bridgeport-based attorney Richard Bieder, the president of Trial Lawyers Care. Crakes' presence wasn't required at the hearings, but Bieder said it was invaluable when Feinberg had questions. "Gary just punched a bunch of things into his computer and had it right there in two seconds," said Bieder who has worked with Crakes in the past on wrongful death suits.

Some families of victims of other acts of terrorism, such as the 1998 embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania by al-Qaida, wondered why they didn't receive compensation. Critics have called the pay-out a massive bailout for the airlines which faced bankruptcy if sued for letting the 19 hijackers on board the airliners that crashed into the World Trade Center, Pentagon and a field in Shanksville, Pa.

"It's an issue for society to confront," Crakes said when asked why taxpayers should have to compensate the families for acts of terrorism. Bieder noted that separate suits have been filed against the bin Laden family and the government of Saudi Arabia, home to 13 of the 19 hijackers.

The concept of compensation for deaths dates back to biblical days, Bieder said. "It's the only way that society has of making the wrongdoers responsible for their actions other than sending them to jail which doesn't do the victim's family any good at all other than give them some satisfaction."

egoodenow@record-journal.com

(203) 317-2228