East Palestine residents seek more time and information ahead of $600m settlement deadline

Some residents of East Palestine, Ohio, want more time and more information before they have to decide by a deadline this week whether to accept their share of a $600 million class action settlement with Norfolk Southern in connection with last year’s disastrous train derailment.

But it is unclear whether the judge will rule on their motion before Thursday’s deadline for people living within 20 miles (32 kilometers) of the derailment to file a claim.

Residents living within 10 miles (16 kilometers) of the Feb. 3, 2023 collapse near the Ohio-Pennsylvania border must also decide whether to accept up to $25,000 per person for personal injuries, although accepting that money would will force them to assert the right to sue later if someone develops cancer or other serious illness from chemical exposure.

The amount residents can receive varies depending on how close they lived to the derailment, with people who lived within 2 miles receiving $70,000 for property damage. People who lived on the outer edge of the zone might only get a few hundred dollars.

One of the key complaints in the motion filed by attorney David Graham is that attorneys representing the residents in the lawsuit have not disclosed any of the test results conducted by the city’s own expert, Stephen Petty, who has testified in hundreds of lawsuits. on contamination concerns to determine the extent of contamination caused when toxic chemicals spilled and burned after the derailment.

Some of the lawyers involved in the case promised residents in news interviews early on that Petty’s data would be disclosed in court filings to determine the impact on East Palestine. So Graham asked the judge to order that information released to try to address residents’ concerns.

“Fast forward to their current post-settlement position, and class counsel and their PR apparatus have now forgotten all about their star trial expert, Petty,” Graham wrote.

Instead of Petty, attorneys brought out another expert at an online town hall meeting a few weeks ago, who told residents he didn’t think anyone in the city would develop cancer as a result of the derailment. But Dr. Arch Carson did not clarify what data he is basing that opinion on, other than a brief mention of tests from the Environmental Protection Agency.

Researchers studying the health of area residents and tracking the respiratory problems, skin rashes and other ailments they report say it may not be clear for years what the long-term implications of the derailment will be.

“I completely disagree with Dr. Arch Carson — there is no research data to suggest that his claim is correct,” said Dr. Erin Haynes, who leads one of the city’s leading studies and is chair of the Department of Epidemiology and the Environment . Health at the University of Kentucky College of Public Health.

Graham suggested that the plaintiffs’ lawyers may be more interested in collecting their legal fees of up to $180 million than representing the interests of residents.

Attorneys for the plaintiffs did not immediately respond to Monday’s request, but previously defended the settlement that was announced in the spring. They said the settlement is larger than any past derailment grant that has been made public and that the time residents have been given to evaluate the deal is similar to other settlements.

Some residents complained that the initial deadline to drop the lawsuit came less than a week after the National Transportation Safety Board held a hearing on its findings from the investigation.

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