Ingham County Judge Gives Final Approval to $7.8 Million East Lansing BWL Settlement

It took more than five years in multiple Michigan courts, but a $7.8 settlement was given final approval by a Lansing judge Friday in a class action lawsuit against the City of East Lansing for leveraging an illegal fee on residents.

A 5% “franchise fee” was placed on Lansing Board of Water and Light customers in East Lansing at the direction of East Lansing City Council in 2017, which after a lengthy legal battle was found to be illegal by the Michigan Supreme Court in February.

“We’re at the end of a very long road,” Gregory Hanley, an attorney representing the class action suit against East Lansing told Ingham County Circuit Court Judge Wanda Stokes over Zoom in court Friday.

Attorneys on both sides of this case are looking forward to this years-long case to be over, Hanley said. The City of East Lansing had other avenues to continue defending its side, Hanley noted, but the settlement gaining final court approval Friday avoids a longer court process and will allow all parties involved to move forward from this issue.

The $7.8 million settlement is “a very fair settlement,” John Clark, one of the city’s attorneys said, and helped avoid the court from having to see the case “to the bitter end.”

As a judge, Stokes remarked that the settlement seemed largely “collaborative” between the city and plaintiffs, which is a positive as it avoided further drain on the court system while both sides acted in the best interest of their arguments.

This summer, the city announced it would create a $7,800,971.13 fund in anticipation of the settlement to reimburse the affected BWL customers and residents had until Sept. 2 to file a claim.

As part of the settlement, Stokes approved a $2.6 million payout to attorneys representing the class action suit for more than 5 years of attorney expenses and a $30,000 service award to class representative, East Lansing resident James Heos.