The years-long process of distributing a $626.5-million settlement to the families of children who drank tainted water and others impacted as a result of the Flint, Mich., lead-in-water crisis almost a decade ago is inching closer to completion after a pair of court rulings in the past week.
On March 21, Chief Judge David Newblatt in Michigan's Genesee County Circuit Court approved the settlement, formally closing cases that were filed in state court before the plaintiffs joined what became a combined settlement. A panel of federal appeals court judges in Ann Arbor, Mich., also upheld attorneys’ fees awarded in the settlement in a March 17 opinion.