Fair deal

The Indianapolis Star has a fascinating profile of Kenneth Feinberg, nationally know expert on overseeing victims' funds and settlements, who has been hired to recommend distribution of funds to victims of the Indiana State Fair stage collapse. Feinberg has been involved with some real whopper settlements -- $7 billion for the 9/11 attacks, for example, and $20 billion for the Gulf oil spill. It must really seem like small potatoes to consider Indiana's two pools of settlement money -- a $5 million Tort Claim Fund to be administered by Attorney General Greg Zoeller, based on the maximum amount for one event set by Indiana law; and about $800,000 donated by private individuals and businesses:

The Indiana State Fair tragedy, however, is a whole different deal, with no big paydays likely, Feinberg said in a news conference at the State Fairgrounds on Wednesday.

"This is not like 9/11, when Congress said to pay out whatever is necessary," he said.

He added: "There's going to be a lot of decisions made about who is eligible. There will always be a tension."

Zoeller, in a statement Wednesday, said the state would give priority to families of victims who died and those who were seriously injured.

Imagine that -- money will be given to families of those killed or seriously injured, which is "dampening the hopes of those who say they were emotionally traumatized by witnessing the event." Aww. Indiana's limits might arguably be too low -- the $5 million event limit more so than than the $700,000 per individual -- but keeping the money so limited that there isn't enough for such nebulous claims as "emotionally trauma" is hard to quibble with. The state's efforts to tame the lawsuit beast seem ever more reasonable.