Page:United States Statutes at Large Volume 73.djvu/745

 73 S T A T. ]

PUBLIC LAW 86-381-SEPT. 26, 1969

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SEC. 2. The Secretary of the Army or such 'person as he may designate shall apply the following rules: (a) Each instance of death or personal injury shall be considered as having created a separate claim. (b) A claim for death shall be deemed not to have abated on the death of the claimant before award under this Act and shall be settled by payment to the person or persons entitled to the estate of the deceased claimant under the laws of Texas, who shall be deemed claimants for this purpose. (c) A brother or sister of a deceased person who was totally dependent on the deceased person and which brother or sister was permanently and totally disabled at the time of the death of such deceased person shall be entitled to assert a claim for death, but no award shall be made if it would diminish the award justly due other survivors of the deceased person under the Texas wrongful death act or under subsection 2(b) of this section. (d) Where a corporation sustained property damage in the Texas City disaster and filed a civil action against the United States for losses sustained in the Texas City disaster and thereafter was dissolved, and the claim filed on behalf of the dissolved corporation by it and by its two stockholders was administratively consolidated by the Secretary of the Army with other claims filed by said stockholders, the Secretary of the Army shall settle the claim, treating it as a claim asserted by the dissolved corporation. (e) The Secretary of the Army shall consider and settle all claims based on death or permanent disability. "Permanent disability" under this subsection shall include only those permanent disabilities which are deemed to be 40 per centum or more disabling in accordance with the standard schedule of rating disabilities in current use by the Veterans' Administration. SEC. 3. Section 3 is amended by the addition of the following sentence at the end of subsection (a) of that section: "The limitations of this subsection shall not apply to claims based upon death or upon permanent disabilities which are deemed to be 40 per centum or more disabling in accordance with the standard schedule of rating disabilities in current use by the Veterans' Administration, or to claims asserted by the brother or sister of a deceased person who was totally dependent on the deceased person and was permanently and totally disabled at the time of the death of such deceased person. SEC. 4. Section 7 is amended to read as follows: "The Secretary of the Treasury shall pay out of moneys in the Treasury not otherwise appropriated, the claims referred to in this Act in the amounts approved for payment by the Secretary of the Army, and the administrative costs of the investigation and settlement of claims under this Act." SEC. 5. Within two years from the effective date of this Act, the Secretary of the Army or his designee shall fix and determine the awards, if any, on claims reconsidered or submitted under this Act. The authority of the Secretary of the Treasury to make payment of awards so fixed and determined or those awards heretofore made under the Act of August 12, 1955, shall terminate three years from the effective date of this Act. Except as otherwise provided herein, the law of the State of Texas shall apply. SEC. 6. The Secretary of the Army, two years and six months after g^^^^°'^ *° ^°"^ the date of enactment of this Act, shall transmit to the Congress, in addition to any such information relating to the Act of August 12,

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