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Framing the Choice Between Cash and the Courthouse: Experiences With the 9/11 Victim Compensation Fund
Author(s) -
Hadfield Gillian K.
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
law and society review
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.867
H-Index - 74
eISSN - 1540-5893
pISSN - 0023-9216
DOI - 10.1111/j.1540-5893.2008.00354.x
Subject(s) - framing (construction) , plaintiff , cash , accountability , terrorism , compensation (psychology) , payment , empirical research , business , sacrifice , financial literacy , economics , law , finance , public relations , political science , social psychology , psychology , archaeology , philosophy , structural engineering , epistemology , engineering , history
In this article I report the results of a quantitative and qualitative empirical study of how those who were injured or lost a family member in the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks evaluated the tradeoff between a cash payment—available through the Victim Compensation Fund—and the pursuit of litigation. Responses make it clear that potential plaintiffs saw much more at stake than monetary compensation and that the choice to forego litigation required the sacrifice of important nonmonetary, civic values: obtaining and publicizing information about what happened, prompting public findings of accountability for those responsible, and participating in the process of ensuring that there would be responsive change to what was learned about how the attacks and deaths happened. The results shed light on the framing component of the transformation of disputes, and in particular on how potential litigants see the decision to sue, or not, as a decision as much or more about how they understand their relationship to their community and their responsibilities as a citizen as how they evaluate monetary considerations.