A federal judge on Wednesday approved a $600 million settlement between Norfolk Southern and people who live near East Palestine, where the company’s train derailed last year and contaminated the community.
At the U.S. District Court in Youngstown, Ohio, Judge Benita Pearson ruled that the settlement of the class action lawsuit was fair, reasonable and adequate.
LISTEN to the story:
What residents can expect
People in Ohio and Pennsylvania living within 20 miles of the derailment site were eligible to be included in the lawsuit. Those closest to the site, within a two-mile radius, could get the most, $70,000 per household for property damage and economic losses and up to $25,000 per person for personal injuries. Those living farther away would get considerably less, down to a few hundred dollars.
“This is the best possible outcome in this situation,” said David Anderson, who, along with his wife and children, raises cattle and chickens in Beaver County, Pennsylvania, just under four miles from the derailment site. Given that distance, the family should get $45,000 from the settlement, plus $15,000 each for personal injuries.
Anderson said he was one of the first to file a lawsuit against Norfolk Southern after vinyl chloride was vented from the train cars and burned, creating a toxic plume that left residue around his property.
When Judge Pearson consolidated the numerous lawsuits last year into a class action, Anderson was asked to be one of the residents named in the lawsuit to represent the class. He was impressed with the judge. “She was about the process being fair. She was about the people who were affected being the first consideration,” he said.
Pearson will get an additional $15,000 from the settlement for his role in the class action, which included hours of depositions and inspections of his home and tax returns.
Attorneys for the class action said they had unprecedented participation: nearly 55,000 claims were filed on behalf of more than 450,000 people, and less than one percent of eligible residents opted out of the settlement.
In addition, 97 percent of East Palestine residents filed claims for personal injury payments, according to the attorneys.
Not everyone was pleased with the settlement
After the hearing, about a dozen people from the area stood outside the Thomas D. Lambros Federal Building and U.S. Courthouse, holding signs that read “Human lab rat” and “Dying from dioxin.”
As the lead attorneys in the settlement walked out, people yelled at them.
“That’s disgusting, you guys lied to the whole community,” screamed Jami Wallace, who had been ejected from the courtroom earlier when she scoffed at Judge Pearson for approving the settlement.
Wallace and other residents were told that the attorneys would disclose the results of contamination testing done by the attorneys’ own expert after the derailment. But they haven’t done that.
Wallace, who lived within two miles of the derailment site, opted out of the settlement to pursue her own lawsuit.
“They duped people into signing up. They bullied people, told people, ‘unless you have $1 million to fight it on your own, this is all the money you’re ever going to get,’” Wallace said.
Zsuzsa Gyenes, who lived in East Palestine when the Norfolk Southern train derailed last year, agreed to the settlement but felt like she didn’t have a choice. Photo: Julie Grant/ Allegheny Front
Zsuzsa Gyenes, who lived within a mile of the site with her young son, signed on to the settlement agreement, but “I probably won’t receive anything,” she said. After the derailment, Gyenes moved to a hotel for 17 months, and the money Norfolk Southern paid for that will be subtracted from her settlement payment.
But she didn’t feel like she had a choice; she had to leave her contaminated home in East Palestine.
“I didn’t have an option. I was homeless. I was sick. My son was sick. We lost everything. I lost my job,” Gyenes said.
She and others want long-term medical monitoring for the community to track illnesses that might develop because of the chemical exposures. While that is not part of the class action settlement, there is a separate consent decree between the Department of Justice and Norfolk Southern that includes 10 free annual medical monitoring exams for qualified residents over a 15-year period. That case has yet to be finalized.
Thankful for some compensation
Given that the derailment and exposures happened, David Anderson is pleased the railroad company is paying out anything after contaminating the community.
“The railroad’s normal course of business is to fight into eternity and to just deny responsibility, and they have the resources to do that,” he said.
With the judge’s approval of this settlement, the plaintiff’s attorneys said in a statement that funds would start being distributed in the coming weeks.
