Few people ultimately opted out of the
The plaintiffs' attorneys said only 22 of the nearly 2,000 households in the small
The train crash spilled an assortment of hazardous chemicals from tank cars that ruptured, and days after the derailment, officials decided to blow open five tank cars and burn the vinyl chloride inside because they worried the cars might explode. The
A federal judge has given the deal preliminary approval, but a hearing will be held in late September to determine if the deal should go through. Separately,
The lawyers said in a statement Tuesday that “the community's response to the settlement has been overwhelmingly positive" and thousands of claims have already been submitted.
A handful of residents filed formal objections to the deal because they believe it's not fair that some of the people who were most affected by the derailment might wind up with the smallest settlements and that people didn't have enough time or information to decide whether this deal is fair.
Residents had a chance to hear the
Some residents might receive little or nothing from the settlement because the final amount they get will be reduced by how much assistance they took from
One of the leading critics of the deal,
“Getting nothing for suffering and intentional poisoning is not fair or adequate,” Wallace said in her formal objection.
The lawyers who negotiated the deal with the railroad have said that kind of offset procedure is customary in any lawsuit, so residents would likely face that even if they pursued their own lawsuits against
The amount people are supposed to receive from the settlement also varies based on how close they lived to the derailment and how it affected them. Documents filed in court suggests that a family living within 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) of the derailment might receive
The lawyers have said some people could receive more than those estimated amounts after a claims administrator reviews all the individual factors.
Resident
The settlement offers payments of
Many people are still reporting respiratory problems, unexplained rashes and other symptoms more than a year after the derailment while others have no health complaints. And residents worry about the potential long-term health implications of all the chemicals they have been exposed to.
The court wouldn’t allow the settlement to include anything for potential future health costs because those aren’t known yet, the lawyers say.
The plaintiffs' attorneys are expected to share up to
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