IMPLANTS SETTLEMENT FINALLY NEAR ~ Ontario, Canada

Date: Sat, 4 Dec 1999 20:49:42 -0700

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(posted on alt.support.breast-implant)

IMPLANTS SETTLEMENT FINALLY NEAR

( The London Free Press )

IMPLANTS SETTLEMENT FINALLY NEAR

BYLINE: JONATHAN SHER, FREE PRESS REPORTER AND WIRE SERVICES

After launching the first class action lawsuit in Ontario six years ago, women with silicone breast implants may finally get compensation totalling $26 million.

Dow Corning emerged from bankruptcy proceedings yesterday prepared to pay creditors $4.5 billion US, including $3.2 billion US to settle claims from women worldwide who received implants.

Those who stand to collect include 10,000 to 15,000 Canadian women – about 2,500 of them in Ontario -- who received Dow Corning implants.

Ontario recipients are represented by the London law firm Siskind, Cromarty, Ivey and Dowler.

"This is terrific news that's been a long time coming," lawyer Michael Eizenga said.

Under the plan, Dow Corning would pay $26 million to settle 2, 500 claims in Ontario, $54 million to settle 10,000 claims in Quebec and $37 million for the rest of Canada.

The payouts are less then American women will receive, and Ontario women will fare better than those in Quebec, Eizenga said.

For every dollar paid to American women, Ontarians will receive less than 70 cents and Quebecers about 45 cents.

Dow Corning wouldn't pay Canadians as much as Americans primarily because courts here are less likely to order generous judgements for victims, Eizenga said.

The gap between Ontario and Quebec is due in part to the type of women who filed claims in each province.

In Quebec, women who received implants but suffered no ill effects were more likely to file claims than were similar women in Ontario. So those who file claims in Ontario tend to be sicker as a group, Eizenga said.

Dow Corning filed for bankruptcy in 1995 after thousands of woman sued, claiming the implants made them sick.

Since then class-action litigants in Ontario and Quebec have received $28 million from Bristol-Myers Squibb and $22 million from Baxter Healthcare, also makers of silicon implants.

But those who launched the pioneering lawsuit had to wait until Dow Corning emerged from bankruptcy.

Their wait may be winding to close. Yesterday a bankruptcy judge in Michigan approved a plan that might pay the sickest recipients in Ontario more than $100,000.

Implant recipients here with no ill effects could either get $1, 800 now and drop their claims or wait and collect potentially more should they fall ill.

But the decision by U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Arthur Spector is subject to appeal and some creditors are already rumbling.

In Australia, where women also get less than those in the U.S., lawyers may challenge the plan on that basis, Eizenga said.

The bankruptcy plan could go forward early next year.

At that point -- called the effective date -- women with implants who are ill would have five months to register for a settlement and healthy women would have one year.

Healthy women who opt for $1,800 could be paid by the end of next year. Others would be paid over seven years.

Dow Corning estimates about 179,000 women around the world are covered under the settlement.

Dow Corning developed silicone implants in the 1960s.

JONATHAN SHER, FREE PRESS REPORTER AND WIRE SERVICES, IMPLANTS SETTLEMENT FINALLY NEAR.

The London Free Press, 12-01-1999, pp A1.