Attorney Kenneth Feinberg makes tough calculations on the heels of disaster. As special master of the September 11 Victim Compensation Fund, the fund administrator for victims of the 2007 Virginia Tech campus massacre, and now, as the head of BP p.l.c.’s $20 billion Gulf Coast oil spill fund, his task has been to value the losses. He receives—and expects—criticism. But the statistics don’t lie, Feinberg says. In a year’s time, the Gulf Coast Claims Facility (GCCF) processed 97 percent of the more than 1 million claims.
For all the successes of these funds, Feinberg, who gave a conference to the American Bar Association’s Tort Trial and Insurance Practice Section during the tenth anniversary week of the 9/11 attacks, says he’s dubious about tort reform. He also believes the federal 9/11 fund, while it is sound public policy, should not be replicated. “Why carve out for very special compensation only a few people who are the victims of life’s misfortune?” he says.
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