Www.MoistureWarranty.com/Dryvit_Settlement/dryvit.htm – Dryvit Stucco Class Action Lawsuit Settlement
The Dryvit Stucco Class Action Lawsuit Settlement is back in the news. Apparently some residents of the Hilton Head Island will have to show up in court later this year. The reason for this is that they have to answer some questions in regards to payments that they received. This payment was something that they got from the company that sold the faulty synthetic stucco. Due to the payments, the homeowners then withdrew their lawsuit against the company. The homeowners and their attorneys have been asked to appear in court on October 1 to discuss the payments that the homeowners received from Dryvit Systems as settlement payments.
There is evidence that suggest that the money that they got was for them to drop the suit. The reason for this is so that the company would be able to concentrate on settling the national class action lawsuit instead. This lawsuit would not provide the South Carolina homeowners with any legal help at all. So the main concern here is to make sure that the rules were not broken in the South Carolina case. If you are wondering what this case is all about, in the mid 1990s, the Dryvit Stucco was found to retain water inside the walls. So this caused a lot of moisture damage. Because of this a nationwide class action lawsuit was filed against the company in Tennessee. The company settled the lawsuits in 2002. Then the judge said that other states could also do the same. However, some participants decided to appeal. The reason for the appeal was to challenge the fairness of the settlement.
Four homeowners in South Carolina also felt that the case was not right. So they decided that they would opt out and then file a statewide class action. The four people, John Cardamone and Sally Cardamone, Benjamin Clark and Diane Clark, Nathan Gordon and Jill Gordon and Ramona Gianni. The first three couples were from Hilton Head. Ramona Gianni was from Myrtle Beach. Two firm in Charleston represented the four homeowners. However this lawsuit was not done right. This is because the attorneys of the four homeowners did not file a suit for the other homeowners in South Carolina. This is usually what happens in class action lawsuits where others get information about it via advertisements either in newspapers or TV. These potential people may also get mailings about the case. Because this did not happen, many homeowners in South Carolina did not know that they could take part and get compensation too. By September 2003, the four individual homeowners settled their cases. They basically got quite a lot of money since they were the main plaintiff in the lawsuits. They actually got between $25,000 to $90,000. The lawyers got $600,000 in fees. When the South Carolina case was dismissed, these attorneys were supposed to get another $225,000. However there is no proof of the second payment.
However, the original case was never dismissed in South Carolina. This was because two new plaintiffs came forward. They were Timothy Treon and Janie Treon and P. Jennings Scearce. They got new lawyers to represent them in the case. Dryvit in the meantime tried to get this second class action dismissed but it was denied in February 2009. The reason for this was because the first case was not right because the company allegedly paid off the original plaintiffs and the lawyers. So Dryvit decided to settle this by paying $10,000 to Scearce. They also paid $5,000 to Timothy and Janie Treon. There was also another plaintiff who was paid $2,500. The other homeowners in the state who had the faulty stucco were given either $4 or $8 per square foot of bad stucco. The attorney’s fees that was asked for was $995,000. The Treons and Scearce and a few other plaintiffs filed two separate lawsuits in 2008. The reason given was that the company tried to abandon the original case.
So this is a really fascinating case and if you are interested in finding out the outcome of all these, you will have to stay tuned. Keep checking the website for more information and to find out what is the resolution in this case. It is especially interesting to me to find out if the original plaintiffs and the lawyers in the South Carolina case were really paid off.
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