Firefighter Families United
We are the families of deceased firefighters who lost their lives in the World Trade Center towers on September 11, 2001. You have our full support and appreciation in pursuing the enactment of the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act. When this Bill is before the House Energy and Commerce Committee next week may we respectfully request your help in having an amendment introduced that will allow for judicial clarity about why our loved ones’ radios did not work in the towers on that fateful day?
In December 2003, thirteen families of fallen firefighters asked the Federal District Court to allow an investigation of the 9/11 radio failures to be pursued through the judicial system. The Judge rebuffed our request, saying instead, that by submitting a claim to the Victims’ Compensation Fund, we would waive our rights to maintain “any” civil action because our sons had died in or around the WTC towers on September 11, 2001. Although we argued that the hastily written and passed law that established the VCF was intended to provide alternative relief for those seeking to attribute blame for the attack and crashes at the WTC towers, Judge Hellerstein only allowed us a Hobson’s choice. Both Congresswoman Maloney and the author of the VCF, the late Congressman Henry Hyde, filed Briefs as amici curiae in support of our position when the case reached the United States Supreme Court, that the Congress had created an ambiguity in drafting that proved to be fatal to our quest for the answer to a simple question, “Why were the FDNY firefighters the only first responders without radios that worked in the towers?”
The Firefighter Families’ United amendment to the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act that we have asked its sponsors to consider merely allows us to re-instate the case filed in December of 2003. If a Judge and jury should determine anyone to be at fault and award damages, the amendment provides that we contribute an amount, equal to the amount we were awarded by the Special Master, back to the VCF. In short, all we are asking is for a determination of accountability and responsibility, so that future first responders’ families will not have to suffer the unimaginable abyss to which we have been relegated.
Please call your Congressman or Congresswoman’s office today to voice your support for the Firefighter Families United amendment to H.R. 847 (the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act). Specifically, please ask them to contact Congressman Pallone and Congressman Weiner, both members of the Energy and Commerce Committee that will consider the FFU amendment on Tuesday, March 16, 2010.
Firefighter Families’ United
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