Nearly six years after an early-morning blast at a propane plant in Toronto killed one man and forced thousands of people from their homes, a $23-million settlement in a class-action lawsuit has been approved Thursday.
The Sunrise Propane lawsuit involved 6,500 claimants. They were all evacuated from their homes after an explosion at the Sunrise Plant on Aug. 10, 2008 sent fireballs into the air at 4 a.m.
The blast caused millions of dollars in property damage in the Keele Street and Sheppard Avenue West area.
An employee of the plant, 25-year-old Parminder Saini, was killed in the blast. Bob Leek, a 55-year-old firefighter who responded to the emergency call that day, also died of a heart attack.
Harvin Pitch of Teplitsky Colson, one of several firms representing the claimants, said the outcome was fair and that justice had won out.
"This was a reasonable settlement. We always though it was…so justice is done," he told CTV Toronto after the hearing.
Bob Potts who represented Sunrise said the class-action lawsuit was "very complicated" but that it was "managed extremely well by good counsel."
How much each claimant will receive from the settlement will depend on factors such as loss of income, uninsured losses and expenses related to personal injuries. Some individuals could receive as much as $8 million.
Pitch has previously said that insurance companies will also receive $8 million, and the rest of the settlement will be used to cover fees and administrative costs.
A resident who lives in area of the blast said that news of the settlement being approved is a welcome relief to those who were directly affected by the explosion.
"A lot of people are suffering and they are hurting and they are waiting for what they deserve," James Erceg told CTV Toronto.
But not everyone is satisfied by Thursday's outcome. Lynda Federico says the class-action lawsuit unfairly excluded many residents in the area, including herself.
"It’s not fair," she said. "People are permanently scarred by what happened."
Ted Charney, another laywer who represented the claimants, said they used the official evacuation boundaries to determine who was eligible to be included in the lawsuit.
"In court, I said we were very sorry about it but somebody has to draw the line in terms of who is in and who is out of the class-(action lawsuit)," he said. "We used the evacuation boundaries and unfortunately that means some people were not included."
The settlement will likely be paid to the claimants in the next six to 12 months.
With a report from CTV Toronto's John Musselman
