A dying 26-year-old widow needed her $2.4 million 9/11 check in 30 days

Kenneth Feinberg, the lawyer who ran the federal 9/11 Victim Compensation Fund, recalled a woman who came to see him sobbing. She was 26 years old, a widow with two small children, ages six and four. Her husband had been a firefighter and had died in the attacks.

Feinberg had told her she would get $2.4 million from the fund, free of tax, under the no fault program Congress created for families who agreed not to sue. Now she gave him a deadline.

She wanted the money in 30 days.

That demand tested what Feinberg has described as the hardest part of the work. The math was not the problem, he said, because judges and juries put a value on lost earnings, pain, and suffering every day. The hard part was empathy, sitting alone through more than 900 separate hearings with grieving relatives and trying to make each meeting worthwhile and constructive.

He warned her that 30 days might be impossible. This was public money from the U.S. Treasury, and officials had to check every form, rule, and safeguard. It could take 60 or 90 days.

Then she told him why she could not wait. She had terminal cancer and 10 weeks to live. Her husband had expected to outlive her and raise the children. Now the children would be orphans, and she needed to find a guardian, keep the money safe, and plan for schooling.

Feinberg said his general rule in those meetings was to stay composed, saying, "You have a job to do for the president of the United States." He felt he could not break down in front of people who were already in tears.

In her case, he said, he and his team went to the Treasury and pushed the paperwork through in record time. The payment arrived in 30 days. She had asked for it by then to find a guardian for her children. She died eight weeks later. Hearing story after story like this, Feinberg said, showed "the emotional pressure that builds and is debilitating."