City council received details Monday about the recent settlement to ongoing litigation on the cryptosporidium outbreak of 2001.
Thousands of local residents were sickened after they consumed the cryptosporidium-contaminated drinking water in North Battleford that year.
What followed was a commission of inquiry into the matter as well as class action lawsuits from sickened plaintiffs.
At council Monday, City Manager Jim Puffalt outlined the details of the latest settlement. He noted the impact of the outbreak was mainly on the elderly, the young and those with compromised immune systems.
But this class action settlement covers only one class of individuals — young people under the age of 18 who consumed the contaminated water. They were defined under the settlement as the “infant class.”
This most recent settlement was signed in late September and conditional approval was granted in October. A copy of the settlement agreement between the plaintiffs and the City, Province and Saskatchewan Water Corporation was provided to council, along with various other documents.
According to terms of the agreement, the agreement settles the action and releases the defendants with respect to this particular class.
A settlement fund in the amount of $3,300,000 has been set up as part of that agreement.
There was provision for claimants to opt out of the agreement and a deadline of 42 days following the notice of settlement approval and certification to file those forms. All class members who do not opt out are bound by the agreement, according to the settlement terms.
According to the notice of certification and settlement approval, those who wish to opt out must complete an opt-out form and mail it to the administrator, and it must be received or post-marked on or before Jan. 17, 2017.
Also included in the package to councillors was the letter of agreement between the Sask. Ministry of Environment, the City and the Bruneau Group, an Ottawa law firm that specializes in administering settlements. That firm will be the one administering claims applications and payments in this case.
There was also a notice of a certification hearing and proposed settlement, with the approval hearing scheduled for 10 a.m. Dec. 1 in the Court of Queen’s Bench, Saskatoon.
This class action had been ongoing for years. The law firm of Cuelenaere Kendall Katzman and Watson LLP had been handling the case for the plaintiffs, while Stevenson Hood Thornton Beaubier LLP (representing the City of North Battleford) and the Ministry of Justice (representing the Saskatchewan government and the Saskatchewan Water Corporation) acted as defendants’ counsel in the case.
Puffalt told council this case had been around so long the original lawyer working on the file had retired. He had inquired with the firm to find out if there were any other claims out there.
While they didn’t think so, Puffalt said, he noted he hasn’t received a firm or complete answer to that.
In updating council, Puffalt also pointed to the Report of the Commission of Inquiry into the incident, dated March 28, 2002, which he said “certainly describes very accurately what happened at that time.”
