Lawyer in class action lawsuit against Norfolk Southern pleased with the result, $600M settlement

EAST PALESTINE, Ohio — Channel 11 is hearing directly from one of the lawyers and co-counsel on the $600 million settlement reached with Norfolk Southern over last February’s toxic train derailment and subsequent chemical burn.

The class action lawsuit includes people and businesses who are within a 20-mile radius of the derailment site. Jayne Conroy is co-counsel for the class action lawsuit which represents roughly 100,000 people.

“People are just unsure and anxious about their health,” Jayne Conroy tells Channel 11 News. “Time is helping with that, studies are helping with that as we look more closely into what was released and what combinations of chemicals were released. That’s a difficult area because it’s not always certain what will happen in the future.”

Norfolk Southern says this is part of their commitment to doing what’s right and providing financial relief; but, many of the folks Channel 11 talked to in Darlington Township, Beaver County and East Palestine, Ohio says it doesn’t go far enough and there is no price that can be paid for poisoning entire communities.

>>> Norfolk Southern agrees to $600M settlement over East Palestine derailment

Conroy says she and the other lawyers on the case have worked with environmental agencies and had scientists analyze weather data from Pittsburgh International and Cleveland Hopkins to determine who was most affected by the derailment and subsequent chemical burn.

“Finding out with real specificity from the Pittsburgh airport, the Cleveland airport that have very sophisticated air modelers for wind currents and such, a lot went into exactly where that cloud sat and where it was going,” Conroy said. “It was extraordinarily cold as I’m sure you remember that day and that had an impact on holding that cloud closer to the earth. There are all sorts of scientific analyses that go into whether that cloud dispersed, where it moved it.”

The Chairwoman of the NTSB, Jennifer Homendy, has since publicly said that the “controlled burn” of rail cars hauling carcinogenic vinyl chloride was not necessary, should not have been done and that Norfolk Southern didn’t have experts with the scientific knowledge on the ground to make that decision.

We asked if $600 million is enough. Once you factor in the number of people and lawyer fees, folks are only looking at a few thousand dollars.

“It never should have happened so how do you put a price on that?” Conroy said. “Things never go far enough, however, we are really satisfied, very pleased with this result. It is significantly larger than any other train derailment settlement as far as our research is telling us. We think this does bring relief to the community - faster than if this goes to trial and appeals.”

Conroy added that the law firms will take over the lease of the East Palestine family assistance center currently run by Norfolk Southern.

They’ll be staged there likely from May through the end of the summer to help folks who are a part of or want to join the class action lawsuit.

A deadline for joining the class action lawsuit has not been set by a federal judge.

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