Slowed By Covid, Church St. South Settlement Advances

The proposed $18.75 million settlement of a years-in-the-works Church Street South class action lawsuit lurched ahead with a new, streamlined structure — and a local civil rights attorney’s hopes that a state court system largely shuttered by the pandemic will resume grinding its gears to allow for hundreds of tenants displaced from the mold-infested former apartment complex to finally get paid.

On Monday and Tuesday, local lawyer David Rosen and attorneys for the Massachusetts-based landlord Northland Investment Corp. submitted 14 new court filings in the case Noble, Personna Et Al v. Northland Investment Corporation Et Al.

That’s the class action lawsuit first filed by Rosen on behalf of a handful of Church Street South tenants at the end of 2016. The suit seeks monetary damages for the respiratory problems, skin disorders, migraines, loss of furniture, dislocation and homelessness allegedly suffered by families because of rampant mold, leaking ceilings, and the landlord’s overall ​“demolition by neglect” of the now-razed former 301-unit complex across from Union Station. Northland has denied all charges.

The new filings describe a number of structural, if not substantive, changes to the proposed $18.75 million settlement first announced by Rosen and Northland representatives on March 6.

If approved by the court, the settlement would still have eligible former tenants receive up to $17,000 each, depending on how long they lived at the former complex after December 2013 and on whether or not they suffered mold-related injuries during their residence.

The updated, 112-page proposed settlement would create a trust to facilitate payments to minors and disabled class members, as well as to the estates of deceased class members.

It includes an updated, simplified notice and base payment claim form for former tenants interested in signing on to the agreement.

And associated filings describe how Rosen’s firm has been able to get in touch with roughly 400 additional former tenants since March — bringing the total number of potentially eligible class members his firm is in phone and email contact with to around 730. That’s out of a total estimated number of eligible class members of around 1,050.

“The settlement is fundamentally the same,” Rosen told the Independent Wednesday morning. ​“The changes are designed to make things more simple and straightforward in a case that is unavoidably complicated.”

“We would like to thank Mediator and Retired Judge Jonathan Silbert for his continued guidance and work in helping both sides achieve this amended agreement,” a Northland spokesperson told the Independent in an email statement. ​“All parties agree that today’s filing strengthens the existing settlement process, and we look forward to the court’s consideration for preliminary and ultimately final approval. We remain committed to helping the former Church Street families move forward in a positive way and believe this improved process will make it easier for claimants to access funds.”

Rosen said that, depending on the court’s decisions, he expects eligible former Church Street South tenants to finally start getting paid thanks to this settlement by the end of April or the beginning of May 2021.

“It seems a long way, away,” he said. ​“But it’s the best thing that can be done.”

Click here to read the amended proposed settlement in full, and here to read a motion for preliminary approval that outlines the agreed-upon facts of the case as well as the key changes included in the amendment.

The proposed settlement would still set aside $13.25 million in a base fund for payment to tenants, $2.65 million in an enhanced fund for tenants who suffered from alleged mold-related injuries while living at Church Street South, and $2.85 million to cover Rosen’s attorney fees and other legal expenses incurred over the course of the nearly four-year suit. It would also still require Northland to grant former Church Street South tenants preferential rights to rent affordable apartments at any new housing complex that Northland builds at the currently vacant 13-acre Union Avenue site, if the landlord indeed decides to rebuild.

Pandemic Holdup

Hanging over these proposed updates to the settlement — and sometimes even explicitly called out in the legal documents themselves — is the Covid-19 pandemic and associated, temporary shut down of the state court.

Rosen and Northland submitted the proposed settlement and a request for preliminary approval to state Superior Court Judge Linda Lager on March 6. Later that week, they held two public information meetings at Trinity Lutheran Church downtown in a rush to get the word out about the proposed settlement and win the support of former tenants.

And then the pandemic hit.

On March 10, Gov. Ned Lamont declared a public health and civil preparedness emergency around Covid-19.

On March 12, the state Judicial Branch announced that the courts would be largely closed and only processing ​“Priority 1” matters.

Over the past several months, the state court system has slowly expanded the number of cases handled remotely. Click here for a complete timeline of the Judicial Branch’s operations during the pandemic.

“It slowed everything down,” Rosen said about the pandemic’s impact on the proposed settlement. ​“It just stopped everything, and it also made it harder and slower to complete these improvements that we thought were important. But now, we think we’ve finally got there.”

Rosen said that the two legal adversaries have put the intervening seven months to good use in crafting what they believe to be a clearer and simpler settlement.

While the first few years of the class action lawsuit were marked by intense and protracted legal wrangling as the plaintiffs sought to win the court’s certification of a class of former tenants (according to one recently filed explanation, the case has seen approximately 200 filings, the parties exchanged approximately 400,000 pages of documents, and each side retained multiple expert witnesses), Rosen said, ​“The improvements that we think were made during the pandemic were all done collaboratively with the defense counsel and the mediator.”

In that spirit of newfound comity, the two have submitted to the court a stipulation waiving a hearing on their motion for a preliminary approval of the proposed class action settlement.

“The parties have conferred about the fairest and most efficient way for this case to proceed in light of the COVID-19 pandemic and its effect on court proceedings, including the hearing on Plaintiffs’ Motion for Preliminary Approval of Class Action Settlement,” that stipulation reads.

“The parties stipulate and agree that … waiving the hearing on the request for preliminary approval of the settlement will benefit the putative class, the parties and the interests of justice by permitting the process that will inform the Court’s decision on whether to grant final approval of the settlement to move forward in an expeditious manner.”

Rosen said that the joint waiving of a hearing on the motion for preliminary approval should hopefully result in Judge Lager soon signing off — at least on the preliminary approval.

That in turn will allow for Rosen’s firm and the proposed class action settlement administrator, JND Legal Administration, to get the notice of the settlement out to as many people as possible and finally start officially signing up former tenants interested in agreeing to its terms and ultimately getting paid.

“The reaction to the settlement of the more than 700 class members who are in contact with proposed Class Counsel has been overwhelmingly positive,” Rosen wrote in a recent motion for preliminary approval.

“None has expressed an intention to object to the settlement or opt out of the class, much less to simply pass up the benefits of the settlement. Their uniform reaction has been eagerness – often accompanied by completely understandable impatience – to have the settlement confirmed so that they and their families may finally obtain benefits.”

Rosen stressed that eligible class members won’t actually start getting paid until the judge issues a final approval of the settlement. He also said that a court hearing must and will take place before the judge decides on whether or not to issue a final approval.

Amendment Highlights

The primary, structural update included in the amended proposed settlement is the creation of a trust designed to help smooth out the process by which minors, disabled class members, and the estates of deceased class members get paid without having to work through the probate court process themselves.

“If a child needs money, the parent can get in touch with the trustee and just say so,” Rosen explained. ​“If the trustee agrees, he will have the authority to pay out the money. There’s no court proceeding involved once the trust is set up.” The proposed trust structure was designed by attorney Deborah Tedford.

The two sides have proposed that retired long-time former Probate Judge Jack Keyes serve as the guardian ad litem for the trust beneficiary class members. They’ve also proposed that local attorney William Clendenen be appointed as the trustee of the trust.

“Attorney Keyes served for 32 years as the Judge of Probate for New Haven,” Rosen wrote in a motion for his appointment. ​“His vast experience and his judgment and human understanding make him an ideal choice for the position of Guardian ad Litem.”

In a motion for the appointment of Clendenen, Rosen wrote that the local attorney has been a lawyer in New Haven since 1968, ​“has broad and deep experience handling matters that are both complex and sensitive,” and has previously served as the president of the New Haven County Bar Association and of the Connecticut Bar Association.

Rosen also pointed to an updated version of the notice and claim form for former tenants interested in signing on to the settlement.

“The notice is supposed to be simple,” he said. ​“The original notice was very far from simple. This one’s better. There are just a bunch of complexities that we have done our best to explain in a clear way. We’re sure this is clearer.”

Click here to read the full, updated form.

And the new documents describe the outreach efforts Rosen’s office has undertaken since the proposed settlement was first announced in March.

He wrote that his firm has been retained by approximately 300 class members. ​“Outreach and education efforts to non-client class members began the day the settlement was made public and Northland provided our firm with the list of authorized residents.”

There were the two group meetings at Trinity Lutheran ​“held just before the pandemic precluded face-to-face contact.”

“As a result, our office now has direct email or cell phone contact with about 730 class members (adults and children), including approximately 80 persons who were not authorized tenants but appear to be able to establish class membership. We have established active communication with these class members, which continues with phone calls and group texts.”

If more than 25 class members affirmatively opt out of the settlement, then Northland can terminate the class settlement entirely. Or it can stay in the settlement and receive a pro rata reimbursement from the funds for each opt-out over 25. Rosen said that the tenants he has spoken to so far have been overwhelmingly positive in their responses to the settlement, and are eager for it to be finalized.

Previous coverage of Church Street South:
• ​“I’m Feeling Good. Thankful. Blessed”
• $18M Church St. South Settlement Reached
• From Ashes Of Disaster, A Challenge Arises
• Judge Weighs Class Action Argument
• Judge Spares Church Street South’s Shell Corporations
• Spin Doctor Hired To Rebut Asthma Link
• Northland: Disaster Not Our Fault
• Church Street South Taxes Cut 20%
• The Tear-Down Begins
• Finally Empty, Church Street South Ready To Disappear
• Northland’s Insurer Sues To Stop Paying
•Who Broke Church Street South?
•Amid Destruction, Last Tenant Holds On
• Survey: 48% Of Complex’s Kids Had Asthma
• Families Relocated After Ceiling Collapses
• Housing Disaster Spawns 4 Lawsuits
• 20 Last Families Urged To Move Out
• Church St. South Refugees Fight Back
• Church St. South Transfers 82 Section 8 Units
• Tenants Seek A Ticket Back Home
• City Teams With Northland To Rebuild
• Church Street South Tenants’ Tickets Have Arrived
• Church Street South Demolition Begins
• This Time, Harp Gets HUD Face Time
• Nightmare In 74B
• Surprise! Now HUD Flunks Church St. South
• Church St. South Tenants Get A Choice
• Home-For-Xmas? Not Happening
• Now It’s Christmas, Not Thanksgiving
• Pols Enlist In Church Street South Fight
• Raze? Preserve? Or Renew?
• Church Street South Has A Suitor
• Northland Faces Class-Action Lawsuit On Church Street South
• First Attempt To Help Tenants Shuts Down
• Few Details For Left-Behind Tenants
• HUD: Help’s Here. Details To Follow
• Mixed Signals For Church Street South Families
• Church St. South Families Displaced A 2nd Time — For Yale Family Weekend
• Church Street South Getting Cleared Out
• 200 Apartments Identified For Church Street South Families
• Northland Asks Housing Authority For Help
• Welcome Home
• Shoddy Repairs Raise Alarm — & Northland Offer
• Northland Gets Default Order — & A New Offer
• HUD, Pike Step In
• Northland Ordered To Fix Another 17 Roofs
• Church Street South Evacuees Crammed In Hotel
• Church Street South Endgame: Raze, Rebuild
• Harp Blasts Northland, HUD
• Flooding Plagues Once-Condemned Apartment
• Church Street South Hit With 30 New Orders
• Complaints Mount Against Church Street South
• City Cracks Down On Church Street South, Again
• Complex Flunks Fed Inspection, Rakes In Fed $$
• Welcome Home — To Frozen Pipes
• City Spotted Deadly Dangers; Feds Gave OK
• No One Called 911 | ​“Hero” Didn’t Hesitate
• ​“New” Church Street South Goes Nowhere Fast
• Church Street South Tenants Organize