Nearly three years after the Norfolk Southern derailment covered East Palestine, Ohio, in a cloud of toxic smoke, many residents say they are still waiting on settlement checks that were supposed to help put their lives back together. Families and small-business owners report months of delays or partial payments, even as the lawyers and administrators behind the class-action deal have already collected their money. The frustration has revived a familiar question in big corporate settlements: who really gets made whole, and who gets left holding the bag.
Investigation: Who Cashed In First
According to an investigation by The Lever, class-action attorneys collected roughly $180 million under the deal’s early-pay provisions, while the court-appointed settlement administrator allegedly misallocated more than $17 million and billed over $9.5 million in fees. The Lever’s reporting also says residents were directed toward a $129 million personal-injury pool that required claimants to sign releases waiving future claims. Those decisions, the outlet reports, left less money in the pot for the broader class of victims.
How the Settlement Was Supposed to Work
Norfolk Southern agreed to a roughly $600 million class-action settlement in 2024 to resolve claims tied to the Feb. 3, 2023 derailment, according to contemporaneous reporting. The Washington Post detailed how the deal carved out separate funds for property damage and personal-injury claims.
The company initially hired Kroll Settlement Administration to run the claims process. A federal judge later suspended Kroll and appointed Epiq to take over, after allegations of calculation errors and overpayments surfaced, as reported by The Vindicator.
Payments Paused While Only a Trickle of Checks Go Out
Appeals and the upheaval in the settlement administrator’s office have put many direct payments on ice and slowed personal-injury distributions. Local coverage shows that some personal-injury checks finally went out at the end of December 2025, but many eligible residents say they still have not received what they were expecting. Spectrum News1 interviewed residents who described getting smaller-than-anticipated checks or none at all.
Court filings and invoices cited by The Lever indicate Kroll billed millions of dollars for administrative and professional services, then agreed in a December deal to return roughly $17 million to the fund to cover alleged overpayments. The Lever notes that the repayment would not fully offset the millions Kroll had already taken in fees, a gap that residents and some lawyers say helped create the apparent shortfall. Attorneys for holdout claimants are now asking the court for a fuller accounting and possible remedies.
Residents and advocates say the optics are hard to miss: attorneys and contractors got paid first, while many rank-and-file claimants are still waiting. Axios summed up the new reporting as “everyone has been paid but the victims” and noted that celebrity environmental consultant Erin Brockovich appeared among peripheral figures flagged by investigators. Local lawyers representing people who want to leave the class program say they are pursuing other routes, including individual cases and appeals.
Legal Status and What Comes Next
At least five residents and a law firm have appealed the settlement and were ordered to post an $850,000 bond to keep their challenge alive, a move that has effectively frozen roughly $300 million of the fund while the appeal plays out, according to AP. Court filings also show that class counsel has asked the judge to audit Kroll’s work and consider remedies that could include forcing the company to give up improperly billed fees.
Until the appeals, the audit, and any potential clawbacks are sorted out, attorneys say the timing and size of future distributions will remain uncertain. That means many East Palestine residents who thought a landmark settlement would finally close a painful chapter are still stuck in limbo, waiting for checks that have yet to arrive.
