Mr. Fish cartoon on corporations gagging Americans they harm to get restitution.
@drkwarlord Jan 20, 2025:
TRUMP INAUGURATION OFFICIAL’S “PHONY CHARITY” ALLEGEDLY POCKETED EAST PALESTINE TRAIN DISASTER FUNDS
Under a settlement with Ohio’s attorney general, GOP operative Pat Lee can never fundraise for charity in the state again.
@anarcho:
Trump Inauguration Official’s “Phony Charity” Allegedly Pocketed East Palestine Train Under a settlement with Ohio’s attorney general, GOP operative Pat Lee can never fundraise for charity in the state again – Trump only chooses “the best people”
@GinaCavis:
THIS CANT BE RIGHT! East Palestine residents have to take Norfolk Southern pathetic settlement or post $170,000 bond each to fight in court? East Palestine Ohio NEEDS HELP!
https://www.wfmj.com/story/52191520/judge-orders-objectors-to-dollar600m-east-palestine-derailment-settlement-to-post-dollar850000-bond
https://gettr.com/post/p3g95rw6d
@jdsicily1898;
It’s horrible, and winter hasn’t even started yet.
Look at the residents of East Palestine, Ohio whose $600 million settlement from Norfolk Southern is stranded on appeal, yet the lawyers are receiving their $180 payout now, while residents have to wait possibly for years.
Residents ordered to pay $850,000 bond to appeal Ohio derailment settlement vow not to give up by JOSH FUNK, January 23, 2025, AP News
Residents challenging Norfolk Southern’s $600 million settlement for the disastrous East Palestinetrain crash have asked a court to reject a judge’s order requiring them to put up an $850,000 bond to continue their appeal for higher compensation and more information about the contamination.
Nearly $300 million of the settlement has been on hold because of the appeal even though a judge approved the deal in September. The holdout residents are urging the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals to stop them from having to put up the huge sum to continue with their claims stemming from the February 2023 derailment and fire.
Class-action attorneys who negotiated with Norfolk Southern have said the appeal will add significant administrative costs for the firm disbursing person injury payments to people who lived or worked within 20 miles (32 kilometers) of the derailment site even though $18 million has already been set aside to cover expenses.
The freight train derailment in the Ohio village near the Pennsylvania state line included 11 cars transporting hazardous materials. Area residents evacuated and, days later, officials fearing a possible uncontrolled blast intentionally released and burned toxic vinyl chloride from five rail cars, sending flames and black smoke into the sky.
Attorney David Graham said his clients are pressing ahead with the appeal in the belief that the settlement does not do enough to compensate them for possible future health effects. They worry the contaminants could lead to cancers and other serious ailments in the future, and they want to know what the lawyers uncovered during their investigation so they can better judge the risks.
“We’re not intimidated and we’re not going anywhere,” Graham said.
The federal Environmental Protection Agency has said toxic levels of chemicals haven’t been detected in the community since shortly after the derailment, but residents and some of the doctors conducting research on the health effects of the train derailment say they are concerned about the health impacts of prolonged exposure to low levels of chemicals.
Separately, the class action attorneys have refused to disclose what their own testing expert discovered when he visited the community because they agreed to keep that information confidential as part of the settlement.
!!!!!!!
Even while the appeal continues, the company handling the settlement has begun to distribute $120 million for personal injury claims. Many residents have been waiting months to receive official letters advising the amounts they would receive.
The class-action lawyers, who received $162 million in fees for their work on the case, promised residents last summer that they would get up to $25,000 per person for personal injuries if they lived within two miles (3 kilometers) of the site.Disgusting rip-off, typical of the legal-judicial industry’s crass gag and settle trickery. Pay the lawyers massive amounts of money, the harmed next to nothing, while gagging their right to free speech and letting guilty companies say publicly they’re innocent and or have no liability or duty of care for the harmed as part of the settlement. Gags like these must be made illegal, and on all rape/sexual assault cases. There is no justice with gag orders, especially those that keep secret toxic chemicals the gagged were exposed to and that reportedly killed some of their pets.
But accepting that money meant that residents were giving up the right to sue later if they do develop health problems.
At the time, dozens of railcars careened off the tracks, spilling their toxic contents and catching fire. The disaster was made worse three days later when officials decided to blow open five tank cars of vinyl chloride and burn their contents, a step investigators later determined was unnecessary.
The main payments of up to $75,000 per household for property damage have been on hold because of the appeal. The amounts people are to receive from the settlement gradually decrease the further they are from the derailment site — down to just a few hundred dollars at the outer edges.
Some residents who have received determination letters about the payments have posted online that they are sometimes thousands less than promised last summer. Others posted that the amounts are exactly as advised.
The class-action attorneys always emphasized the largest possible payments in their meetings in the community, but the official formula dictating how much each person would receive was not available until after the settlement was approved.
The official formula posted online says says that people who lived or worked in town when the derailment happened and didn’t return until after the evacuation order was lifted on Feb. 8, 2023, will be eligible to receive a full payment. Their settlement will be reduced if they moved to town after the derailment happened. Several other factors will also help determine how much residents receive.
Representatives of the Kroll company that is administering the settlement payments didn’t respond Tuesday and a representative of the class-action attorneys said they didn’t have anyone available to answer questions before Wednesday.
The East Palestine derailment was the worst rail disaster in a decade and prompted calls for reform.
A subsequent rail safety bill in Congress stalled and was never approved.
The industry promised https://apnews.com/article/railroad-safety-derailment-east-palestine-norfolk-southern-bef9b47b5200f033d2f045c850745e94 some changes like adding more trackside detectors to help spot defects before they can cause derailments, but those haven’t yet made a significant difference in railroads’ safety records.
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This story has been corrected to show the explanation of how the formula that determines how much people will receive from the settlement works. People who lived or worked in town when the derailment happened and didn’t return until after the evacuation order was lifted on Feb. 8, 2023, will be eligible to receive a full payment.
***
Below is a related case:
@Rembrant111 Jan 28, 2025:
22 million seems pretty low
Refer also to:
There’ll be a lot more deregulation by the Nazi States of Israel under Musk and his orange melon
None of this settlement will come out of the pockets of the politicians leading Canada when the rights violations happened, or any of their soldiers of abuse and aggression – the police.
Only the people will pay.
2019: Non-Disclosure Agreements “are, indeed, an ugly instrument.”
… The NMHCs in the study were detected at levels of parts per million, parts per billion and parts per trillion, but the endocrine system is so sensitive that even tiny doses can lead to large health effects. Federal safety standards rarely consider the impacts of low dosage testing, an omission that scientists say should be addressed …
2011: The unacceptable price of secret settlement
… As a result of confidentiality settlement agreements, a defendant corporation that is conducting harmful business practices may freely continue engaging in the same practices after settlement, with no fear of public reprisal.
… Even when the plaintiff agrees to secrecy, the judge has the authority to protect the public interest and deny a secrecy agreement, but experts have found that most judges do not.(9) …
Of course not, judges are the most powerful enablers of gags/NDAs/confidentiality agreements serving corporations, the rich and rapists (especially of kids) at the expense of justice, the harmed and public interest. I can’t decide which is more evil, the complicit judges or the complicit lawyers, including the many that claim they serve the public interest yet cheer when lawsuits conclude in gagging the harmed and let criminal corporations deny liability.