Few residents opt out of $600 million class action settlement in East Palestine, Ohio, derailment

Associated Press

Lawyers say few people ultimately opted out of the $600 million class action settlement Norfolk Southern offered to people affected by last year’s disastrous East Palestine train derailment despite the questions residents raised about the deal. The plaintiffs’ attorneys said in a filing Monday that only 173 of the more than 190,000 households in the area around the derailment opted out of the deal. A handful of people filed formal objections to the deal. They believe they didn’t have enough time to decide and that it’s not fair that some of the people who were most affected by the derailment might wind up with the smallest settlements.