Palm Beach Post Lowe’s drywall settlement offer leaps to $100,000 for eligible homeowners
Lowe’s Cos. Inc. has dramatically amended a settlement for customers who bought defective Chinese or domestic wallboard from their stores, saying customers whose health or property was harmed can now be eligible for up to $100,000 in cash.
Under the previous agreement, Lowe’s had offered to set aside $6.5 million for victims, paying a maximum of $4,500 in cash and gift cards to each person with tainted drywall in their homes. It also gave a $2.1 million payout to the plaintiffs’ attorneys who negotiated the settlement.
Lowe’s latest offer, filed Thursday in Georgia state court, now offers customers $100,000 if an independent contractor can document that the consumer will or already have suffered at least $4,500 worth of property damage or $4,500 worth of medical bills or symptoms related to the defective drywall.
Three other levels of compensation from the earlier settlement offer were not changed: a $50 gift card for customers who have no proof of purchase but say they bought defective drywall from Lowe’s; a $250 gift card for customers with proof of purchase but no documentation of damages; and $2,500 in cash and $2,000 in gift cards for consumers who had proof of purchase of defective drywall bough at Lowe’s and proof through an independent third party that they suffered more than $2,000 worth of damages or health problems.
For the proposed amendment, the company put aside another $2.25 million. The amended settlement, which was negotiated by separate attorneys, keeps the $2.1 million in legal fees for the original attorneys and adds a separate fee for the new attorneys based on how many homeowners qualify for the $100,000 settlement level.
Lowe’s, which denies selling tainted drywall, does not admit any wrongdoing.
The terms of the proposed amendment still need to be approved and signed by Judge Bobby Peters, who is expected to hear arguments about it next month.
“This is huge,” said Palm Beach Gardens attorney Gregg Weiss, who helped negotiate the deal on behalf of his Arcadia-based client Chris Brucker, who bought drywall from Lowe’s in 2006. Weiss had been upset by the original proposed settlement.
“Without this settlement, (Brucker) can’t really do much to get started to fix his home,” Weiss said. “This issue has put my client, a corrections officer, over a barrel. We are just trying to protect consumers’ needs.”
The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission suggests that the only fix to homes plagued by defective wallboard is to tear out the drywall and electrical wiring, an undertaking that can cost $100,000 or more.
