Deadbeat Father Gets 9/11 Compensation

Even for those of us who prefer the judiciary to engage in narrow intepretation of statutory language, it is hard to swallow a decision like this:

A father who abandoned his son in infancy and refused to financially or emotionally support him is nonetheless entitled to half the death benefit owed to the son, who was killed in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, a divided appellate panel has held.

The Appellate Division, 3rd Department, concluded that the Workers' Compensation Law describes parent in strictly biological terms.

Since the father's parental rights were never formally severed, he is entitled to the same benefit afforded to the mother, who struggled on public assistance and raised two well-educated and successful sons, the court found.

This is first and foremost the fault of the legislature, which through sloppy drafting neglected to include an explicit exclusion of parents who have abandoned their children (like they have in their state intestate laws). Perhaps broad construction of statutes has lead to imprecision and carelessness on the part of legislators, and perhaps that ought to be rectified by a concerted shift to strict, if cold, interpretation of statutory language. Still, hard to see how justice had been done in this case.