Flint, Michigan – An engineering company agreed to pay $25 million to settle its role in a lawsuit about the Flint water crisis.
People suing in a group lawsuit claimed that Veolia North America didn’t suggest the right actions to prevent lead from entering Flint’s water.
Total amount settled for the Flint water crisis is now over $650 million
Lawyer Steve Morissey mentioned that with Veolia’s payment, the total amount settled for the Flint water crisis is now over $650 million.
However, he pointed out that no one in Flint has received any money for their losses yet, even though it’s been more than nine years since the crisis started.
Morrissey explained that the lawsuit has taken a long time because of Michigan’s unique laws for group lawsuits, Michigan’s detailed requirements for submitting claims (since the state is also being sued), and because some lawyers, not directly involved in seeking compensation for a long time, objected to the settlement.
He hopes that the state will learn from this experience.
“It doesn’t serve anyone for cases to take nine years to get to a resolution,” he said. “So hopefully we figure out ways to deal with complex litigation and complex problems like that that gets to results more quickly.”
In a statement, VNA said it welcomed the opportunity to put the class litigation behind it.
“VNA stands by its work in Flint. VNA made good recommendations, including a crucial one on corrosion control, that would have helped the City, had those recommendations not been almost entirely ignored by the responsible government officials. As the facts clearly showed, the water crisis was a failure of government, from (then-Governor Rick) Snyder to the bureaucrats on the ground,” the statement said.