Many Flint, Michigan, residents haven’t received their money from the $626.25 million legal settlement owed to them after they were subjected to nearly a decade of lead-poisoned drinking water by the city. 

City officials in charge of distributing the claims on the administrative end said that the money should have been given out by March of last year. Once the deadline passed without word on when the legal settlement would be given out, Flint residents were told it would be given out by Christmas time. On Feb. 28 of this year, attorney Deborah Greenspan said that the initial review of the claims would be completed by the end of June.

However, USA Today reported that Flint residents’ payments are likely to be delayed for many more months. Court records from the settlement case showed that the payout structure made it difficult for residents to get paid.

Many complained that lawyers would collect their money before victims of the state, and there would be a lot of paperwork for everyone to get what they’re owed. 

Ted Leopoldz, an attorney who is acting as co-lead class counsel in the Flint case, said, “We would have preferred a streamlined process that allowed claims to be processed and paid out as they were completed and ensured everyone impacted by the crisis was paid and as quickly as possible.”

He added, “The state insisted on a grid in which the amount of every claim was dependent on every other claim and fairly high levels of documentation were required for each claim.”

According to the terms of the settlement, “No Flint claimant gets paid until all of the roughly 90,000 claims on behalf of about 46,000 Flint residents are fully resolved, including appeals.”

It will be difficult because many claimants have moved out of state or died. This has caused extreme delays that aren’t normal for class action suits. 

Flint residents are still dealing with the aftermath of the water crisis and the financial repercussions that have come with it — both of which get more difficult as their entitled settlement gets delayed further and further. 

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