Another critical deadline is coming up for Flint residents who could qualify to be included in the class action settlement fund for the city’s water crisis.
Lawyers working on the settlement – which totals more than $650 million dollars – have sent letters to thousands of people who filed claims, but still need to submit more information to qualify. There's also another deadline approaching for people who haven't filed a claim yet.
Trachelle Young is the co-lead counsel for the class action. She’s also a Flint resident. She joined Morning Edition host Doug Tribou for an update.
Doug Tribou: The settlement is a result of the lead-tainted tap water that residents were exposed too after the city switched its water source without properly treating the water in 2014. Before we dig into the letters and deadlines that I mentioned, could you just walk us through some of the basics? Who was eligible to submit a claim originally?
Trachelle Young: The original exposure was notified and sent to all residents in the city. So whether you lived in the city or worked in the city, if your children went to school in the city, anybody that had any type of exposure to the Flint water was eligible to file a claim and register for this settlement.
"If a person misses their deadline, we are still encouraging them to submit their information."Attorney and Flint resident Trachelle Young
DT: The letters that we’re talking about today are not outright rejections of a claim. In most cases, you’re looking for more information that could still get a claim approved. What are the most common types of information that are missing from people’s documentation?
TY: The majority, or the common claims, that we're seeing is a person may be missing identification. So their notice will say you can submit a driver's license, a passport, or a Michigan I.D. card to satisfy that element. You could be missing proof of personal injury. And so they can say, 'If you have medical records, [submit them].' And that's kind of been a big issue because back when the claims were being done, not many doctors were willing to relate a person's hair loss or rash or stomach issues directly to the water. Because, you know, those things can come from a volume of things.
We are now being able to look at — instead of direct evidence where a doctor says, 'Yes, your condition was related to the water.' — we can look at circumstantial evidence because there were several common things that people suffered. And so, we're looking at the timing of your personal injury, whether you sought medical treatment or not. We're looking at what the injury was. So if it's common with what the other claimants were experiencing, it's more likely than not that it came from the exposure.
DT: The key deadline that we’re talking about here is this rolling deadline tied to the dates of the letters. What happens if people don’t respond to update their claims within 30 days from the date of the letter asking for more information?
TY: If a person misses their deadline, we are still encouraging them to submit their information. We have been successfully able to get the claims administrator to accept information that has been received past the deadline. We don't want anyone that has a valid claim to miss out on it because they missed that short 30 day time frame.
It's a short window because we're very cognizant of how long this process has taken overall. We had to limit that window so that we can get to the appeals period, to the request for reconsideration, so that we can get to the actual notification of the category for the awards.
DT: Have all the letters gone out?
TY: No, they have not. They will go out up until we get into September.
So we're telling people, if you have not received a notice and you have filed a claim by September, you should be contacting the claims administrator. Or if you're part of the class, you should be reaching out to us.
DT: There’s another layer to the settlement and another deadline for some Flint residents. This year, the class action also reached a $25-million settlement with Veolia North America — a firm that worked as a consultant for the city of Flint during the process of switching the city’s water source. How will that process work?
TY: I think part of that settlement, time-wise, is what caused a lot of confusion as well. That settlement was reached for an additional $25 million. But if people originally registered for the $600 million settlement, then they were automatically included in the additional $25 million that came from Veolia.
If people did not register for the original settlement, they now have an opportunity to register for the $25 million through Veolia only. So they cannot take part in the previous amount. But they are eligible to submit a claim if they have not previously submitted a claim, as long as they meet the criteria. And that deadline for the Veolia claim is Sept. 16.
DT: Clearly there are a lot of moving parts here, but I’m wondering if, in the end, you have a sense of what the range of money that Flint residents could expect to receive if their claims are approved is, and is there a timeline for them to receive it?
TY: So I don't have a range, nor do I have a timeline. By the end of this year, we are hoping that the claims administrator will be in a position to at least notify every eligible and approved claim of what category they're being placed in, and then they'll be able to tell them what that range that's allocated to that particular category is.
"Me and my kids were exposed to the contaminated water. And so, I had a dog in this fight."Attorney Trachelle Young
DT: Have the fees for you and your colleagues, the attorneys who have worked on this class-action suit, been determined yet?
TY: They have not been determined yet. You know, it's a rolling process because we continue to work on the case. Even just our class-action team, we've spent millions in pursuing this claim. And so there was an initial disbursement, primarily aimed at reimbursing for the monies that have been attributed.
DT: Class-action suits tend to take time, and as you’ve acknowledged this has been a long process. The Flint Water Crisis started more than 10 years ago and the litigation started 8 years ago. Why does the process take so long to play out?
TY: You know, that's a great question. And I can tell you, by trade, I am a criminal defense attorney. The only reason I got involved in this case is because I'm also a Flint resident. My kids were born and raised here. Me and my kids were exposed to the contaminated water. And so I had a dog in this fight, if you will.
When the initial complainants got together, they couldn't find an attorney to take their case. Nobody wanted to go up against the city. Nobody wanted to go up against the state. And then also, we have a claim still pending against the [Environmental Protection Agency]. So, I basically took a chance and said, you know what? This is a battle worth fighting.
We filed the first lawsuit to even get them to stop using the Flint River as our primary source of drinking water. And so that's how it started. That's how I've gotten involved and have been a part of this team ever since then.
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Additional resources:
The official Flint water crisis settlement website.
Editor's note: Quotes in this article have been edited for length and clarity. You can listen to the interview near the top of this page.
