(NewsNation) — Class-action lawsuits are supposed to provide compensation and justice to victims of corporate negligence or malfeasance. But critics say the settlements are notorious for shortchanging plaintiffs and lining the pockets of the attorneys hired to advocate for them.
Did something similar happen with the East Palestine, Ohio, train derailment? A whistleblower is now coming forward with claims that the firms representing victims in a $600 million settlement against Norfolk Southern essentially sold out their clients.
Among the hundreds gathered inside a recent East Palestine town hall, one woman was publicly considering blowing the whistle on the $600 million settlement reached after a train derailment and chemical burn.
“I have tried. I have called our governor, I tried all our representatives, nobody cares anymore,” Beth Kosar said.
She is coming forward with information she believes residents of the town need to know.
“The people who signed up for this lawsuit signed up not knowing all the facts. There was a lot of information that was hid from people,” Kosar said. “The people that passed during the first two years, all the people that are getting cancer, it’s like, ‘Oh, no, that had nothing to do with that toxic mess.’”
Sister of legendary quarterback Bernie Kosar and daughter of the late Bernie Kosar, Sr., who was the mayor of Canton, Ohio, Beth Kosar worked for Perfected Claims.
That company said it was working with law firms to provide support for the East Palestine train derailment class-action lawsuit.
“We let a lot of people down,” Kosar said.
Kosar is going public now after seeing Austin Druckenbrod’s story.
Druckenbrod is an otherwise healthy 27-year-old with swelling on his brain.
The Cleveland Clinic diagnosed him with reactive airway disease, which they linked to exposure to the chemicals in East Palestine.
Druckenbrod said his attorneys told him the deal was simple: He would accept the settlement terms of the class action lawsuit but keep his mouth shut.
“Oh, we’re going to take care of you, we’re going to make sure you get like $3 million to $6.8 million,’ and then they told me to not tell anybody,” Druckenbrod said.
Druckenbrod’s former attorney, Mikal Watts, denied the characterization.
“I did not communicate with him to stay quiet. If he believed that he had a personal injury claim worth pursuing, we certainly advocated for those clients to simply opt out and continue to pursue the personal injury litigation,” Watts said.
In an additional statement provided to NewsNation, the attorney said: “No one from my firm authorized clients to be addressed in that way; in fact, I said directly the opposite while warning clients of the difficulties presented by applicable Sixth Circuit law in the Hirsch v. CSX Transportation decision. Indeed, in Powerpoints of client presentations I have on June 11, 2024, I specifically explained how to opt out of the settlement, with specific instructions as to how to do so by the Court’s July 1, 2024 deadline.”
But Kosar says Druckenbrod is 100% accurate.
“Everybody was pushing to sign the personal injuries … We were told, ‘If you don’t want to sign, if you want to opt out, go ahead, but we are not going to represent you because we don’t want to upset the judge,’” Kosar said. “I thought some of those attorneys were my friends, and it turns out, I feel like it was a money grab.”
Kosar, along with more than 200 East Palestine residents, filed a motion for relief with the federal judge.
The motion is based on “substantial evidence of fraud and misrepresentation by class counsel, who concealed critical expert findings about health risks while inducing class members to sign personal injury releases in exchange for inadequate personal injury payments.”
“She knows about the people who are sick. She thought that what she was doing there was for the good of the community,” attorney Mindy Bish said of Kosar. “And she’s had to take the long look and come to understand that she was betrayed. And so, what we’re hoping is that the court will also take a similar long look and realize that just as Beth was betrayed by lawyers who looked at $600 million, that the court was equally betrayed.”
Kosar says the cover-up has been worse than the derailment itself.
“I’m more mad at the government, and people that were supposed to protect us, and the attorneys,” she said.
