EAST PALESTINE — When the attorneys, who brokered last year’s $600 million dollar settlement between Norfolk Southern and area residents, were celebrating the deal and campaigning for those impacted to file a claim against it, distribution of personal injury payments were promised to begin as soon as final approval was granted.

Wednesday will mark five months since that U.S. District Judge Benita Pearson signed off on the deal but the process of distributing personal injury payments — which were not subject to appeals and open to those who worked or lived within the first 10 miles of the derailment — has proven to be protracted and painstakingly slow for those still waiting.

At the beginning of January, Kroll Settlement Administration, the New York-based company being paid millions to process the claims, reported 1,800 payments — or roughly 450 a month — had been completed. That accounts for a fraction of the personal injury claims made.

Those who opted in to the personal injury complaint will first receive a determination letter that will disclose the amount of the personal injury payment and according to the website created by class counsel and Kroll — eastpalestinetrainsettlement.com — once a letter is received, a class member has two weeks to accept or challenge the amount (up to $25,000) determined by an allocation system. That system considers among other things symptoms experienced, medical diagnoses received, age, and distance and direction from the derailment site.

“Kroll is working as quickly as possible to validate and make payments on all personal injury claims,” the website states. “Personal injury payments will be made shortly upon the expiration of each individual’s personal injury payment determination letter response deadline.”

Residents say Kroll is not working quickly enough. They also say class counsel is not holding up their end of the bargain.

While Kroll and attorneys have since said that personal injury payments were “to begin within 30 days of final approval”, that was not the language used during a zoom meeting on Aug. 1 (20 days before the deadline to file claim was to expire) held by class co-counsel Seth Katz, Elizabeth Graham, Adam Gomez and Michelle Kranz to walk residents through the process. In that meeting, residents were told personal injury payments were expected no more than 30 days after the final approval.

That statement was reiterated in a slideshow presented in the zoom meeting.

“This portion of the settlement has timely payment provision that ensures claimants receive their settlement money within 30 days — which will be this year — regardless of whether or not appeals in the courts go on for longer,” the slide read.

The same slide stated that residents did “not need to have suffered a physical injury to obtain a personal injury payment” and attorneys stated that the personal injury component in the class-action settlement did not require proof of injury. However, residents were not told that absence of symptoms or proof of injury would result in a lower award. That information came to light when the allocation system was approved along with the settlement as a whole on Aug. 25.

The zoom meeting wasn’t the first time details of the settlement were seemingly misrepresented. During a town hall with residents at the high school in May, residents questioned attorneys Katz, Jane Conroy and T. Michael Morgan about the potential of the attorneys receiving upwards of $180 million in legal fees. All three dismissed that number, but that’s exactly what counsel asked for and received in the final approval — $162 million in legal fees and $18 million in other expenses.

Another point of contention has been the compensation Kroll will receive for processing the claims and payments. The derailment website insists that “Kroll has not been paid $20 million” but is being “paid from the settlement fund for their time and expenses that are incurred for the administration services they perform under the settlement.” However, under that settlement and according to the plaintiff’s application for attorney’s fees and expenses filed Sept. 6, Kroll has already “billed $2,361,940.74 for administrative expenses” and “estimates that it will bill an additional $14.6 million to complete administration of the settlement.” Add in an additional $825,000 that Kroll has said appeal of the direct payments will cost and Kroll stands to pocket $17,811,940 — just shy of $20 million.

Meanwhile, residents are growing increasingly frustrated. Direct payments (up to $70,000 per household for those who resided within 20 miles of the derailment) are on hold, having been appealed by five class members. Personal injury payments continue to trickle in and many awards are well below the amounts residents believed they were eligible for — some residents have produced determination letters as low as $300 after signing away their rights to sue Norfolk Southern for any health complications that may arise in the future. There is also no priority given as to who receives their payments first.

Co-counsel and Kroll say claims are being processed as fast as possible and residents can expect determination letters in the coming weeks.

“Kroll has made determinations on thousands of personal injury payments for eligible claimants and continues to work with counsel to approve further personal injury payments on a weekly basis,” the derailment website states.

selverd@mojonews.com