Do you know how much was awarded in total to the September 11th Victims?

It was $7 billion.

The Compensation Fund was created by an act of congress shortly after 9/11 to compensate the victims of the attack. The Fund was designed to maximize compensation to the families of victims.

This is about the story of a woman, who lost her husband in that attack.
She must have felt grateful for the U.S. Government when she learnt that the contingency fees by attorneys representing the families were disfavored.

But her hopes were shattered when a lawsuit was filed in federal court by the attorney who represented her before the Victims Compensation Fund. The attorney sought $2,000,000 as a contingency fee. He filed suit in federal court seeking a declaratory judgment entitling him to his fee.

The victim might have heard about simmons jannace & stagg who appeared for Nancy Burpee, the victim of a referee’s ruling in Paralympics swimming competition.

When approached, they were willing to take up her case and immediately moved to dismiss the federal action, arguing that the Victims Compensation Fund did not provide federal jurisdiction for an action by an attorney seeking to protect his fee.

The federal court listened to several other valid points from them and finally stayed the attorney’s action and agreed that the Victims Compensation Fund did not provide federal court jurisdiction.