Case: 1:06-cv Document #: 961 Filed: 07/03/18 Page 1 of 4 PageID #:18566

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1 Case: 1:06-cv Document #: 961 Filed: 07/03/18 Page 1 of 4 PageID #:18566 IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF ILLINOIS KIM YOUNG, RONALD JOHNSON, WILLIAM JONES, ALLEN GORMAN, GERRAD LAMOUR, LEE MERCADO, BRADLEY HYTREK, CARL GRAY, and MATTHEW LIPTAK, on behalf of themselves and a class of others similarly situated, Plaintiffs, v. No. 06-CV-552 JUDGE KENNELLY COUNTY OF COOK and SHERIFF TOM DART in his capacity as Head of the Cook County Sheriff s Department, Defendants. PLAINTIFFS MOTION TO DISTRIBUTE YOUNG INSURANCE FUNDS Plaintiffs hereby move for an order permitting class administrator Rust Consulting to distribute the remaining settlement funds in this case, minus a $100,000 holdback in the event that Class Members who cannot currently be located come forward with contact information. In support of this motion, Plaintiffs state as follows. 1. On September 22, 2017, the Court entered a Final Order approving the settlement of Cook County, et al. v. American International Group, et al., Case No. 12-L-2765 (Cir. Ct. Cook County, Ill.) ( Young Insurance ). 2. The Young Insurance settlement provided an additional $32.5 million common fund for the Class, in addition to the original settlement with Cook County. See, e.g., Dkt. 906 at 5.

2 Case: 1:06-cv Document #: 961 Filed: 07/03/18 Page 2 of 4 PageID #: After deducting notice costs of approximately $500,000, Dkt. 906 at 5 n.3, and the Court-awarded one-third contingency fee, the Young Insurance settlement provided approximately $21,500,000 for the 64,836 Class Members who submitted timely, valid claims for payment from the original settlement with Cook County. 4. Rust Consulting made an initial distribution of the Young Insurance proceeds to Class Members in the amount of $18,953, in January To account for the fact that Rust was unable to locate some Class Members, it held back the remaining proceeds for a future distribution. The amount it held back would have been sufficient to satisfy all claims from any Class Members who surfaced after the January 2018 payments went out. See Dkt ; Dkt (Rust Consulting Declaration). 5. Since it sent the original checks in January 2018, some additional Class Members who could not previously be located have contacted Rust or Class Counsel with updated address information, and so a total of $19,028, in checks have now been sent to 63,288 Class Members. Ex. 1 (J. Stinehart Declaration) As of today, approximately 43,000 checks have been cashed, meaning that approximately 20,000 checks have not been cashed, either because the checks were returned with no forwarding address available, or because the checks were not returned but were simply not cashed. Ex. 1 5(a); id. 5(b)(i),(ii). 7. With the exception of approximately 200 checks that were recently reissued at the request of Class Members, the approximately 20,000 uncashed checks are now past the void dates listed on the checks. Ex. 1 5(b). 8. Rust Consulting submits that it has exhausted all reasonable efforts to locate the approximately 20,000 Class Members with uncashed checks. Ex

3 Case: 1:06-cv Document #: 961 Filed: 07/03/18 Page 3 of 4 PageID #: Because Rust Consulting has exhausted all reasonable efforts to locate the remaining Class Members with uncashed checks, Class Counsel, in consultation with Rust, seeks leave to distribute the remaining funds to the approximately 43,000 Class Members who have cashed their first checks from the Young Insurance settlement. See Ex To account for the possibility that some of the Class Members with uncashed checks will contact Rust or Class Counsel with updated address information, Class Counsel, in consultation with Rust, proposes to hold back $100,000 from the distribution. That money can then be used to satisfy claims of Class Members who may surface after the proposed distribution is made. 11. When Class Counsel originally sought approval of the Young Insurance settlement and proposed a two-distribution plan, it noted that one reason for making two distributions rather than distributing everything at once was the fact that there was an additional lawsuit that might provide compensation for the Class in this case. That case, County of Cook v. USI, Case No. 12-L-8066 (Cir. Ct. Cook County), resulted in a verdict for Plaintiff in the amount of $9,050,000 in March Ex. 2 (USI Judgment). Both sides in the USI case have filed posttrial motions, which remain pending, and it appears likely that there will be an appeal following the resolution of those motions. The ultimate amount and timing of any payment from that case is uncertain, and Class Counsel submits that it would no longer be in the Class s best interest to wait for the final resolution of the USI case to make the final distribution of the Young Insurance funds. 12. Waiting for the final resolution of the USI case increases the possibility that additional Class Members may lose contact with Class Counsel and Rust, which would mean they might not get the second distribution at all. In addition, costs of administration increase the 3

4 Case: 1:06-cv Document #: 961 Filed: 07/03/18 Page 4 of 4 PageID #:18569 longer that Rust holds the funds, including costs for responding to the substantial number of inquiries from Class Members (and non-class Members) regarding the timing of future distributions. Thus, Class Counsel submits that distributing the remaining Young Insurance funds now is in the best interest of Class Members. WHEREFORE, Plaintiffs seek leave to have Rust Consulting distribute the remaining funds from the Young Insurance settlement, minus a $100,000 holdback, to Class Members who have cashed their first checks from that settlement. Respectfully submitted, /s/ Scott Rauscher Michael Kanovitz Jon Loevy Scott Rauscher LOEVY & LOEVY 311 N. Aberdeen St., Third Floor Chicago, IL (312) Class Counsel 4

5 Case: 1:06-cv Document #: Filed: 07/03/18 Page 1 of 5 PageID #:18570 IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF ILLINOIS KIM YOUNG, RONALD JOHNSON, WILLIAM JONES, ALLEN GORMAN, GERRAD LAMOUR, LEE MERCADO, BRADLEY HYTREK, CARL GRAY, and MATTHEW LIPTAK, on behalf of themselves and a class of others similarly situated, v. Plaintiffs, COUNTY OF COOK and SHERIFF TOM DART in his capacity as Head of the Cook County Sheriff s Department, Defendants. No. 06-CV-552 JUDGE KENNELLY DECLARATION OF JASON M. STINEHART CONCERNING EFFORTS TO LOCATE CLASS MEMBERS I, Jason M. Stinehart, hereby declare as follows: 1. I am employed as a Program Manager by Rust Consulting, the Settlement Administrator in the above-entitled action. Our main office address is 625 Marquette Avenue, Suite 900, Minneapolis, MN I am over twenty-one years of age and authorized to make this declaration on behalf of Rust Consulting and myself. 2. I am submitting this Declaration to discuss the efforts that have been made to locate Class Members and distribute their shares of the Young Insurance settlement. EFFORTS TO LOCATE CLASS MEMBERS 3. Rust Consulting carried out the Court-approved notice plan to inform Class Members about the Young Insurance settlement. As part of that process, on or about May 17, 2017, Rust Consulting extracted a list of those who submitted a valid claim form from Young I (the original Young settlement with Cook County) to provide notice to Class Members of the settlement in the Young Insurance case, as only those Class Members who submitted a timely, EXHIBIT 1

6 Case: 1:06-cv Document #: Filed: 07/03/18 Page 2 of 5 PageID #:18571 valid claim to the Young I settlement are eligible to participate in the Young Insurance settlement. 4. In compiling the Class List for mailing the Class Notice, Rust Consulting used the data it had from Young I, which entailed 64,838 records of claimants who submitted valid claims for the Young I settlement. In sending out the Class Notice, Rust Consulting used the mailing address of Young v Cook County II , P.O. Box 2599, Faribault, MN in order to receive undeliverable Class Notices, Requests for Objection and Settlement Class Member correspondence. After sending out notice of the Young Insurance settlement, Rust received a total of 26,760 undeliverable notices without a forwarding address. Before sending out checks to Class Members, Rust employed the below-described tiered approach to locate as many Class Members as possible. Through that approach, described below, Rust identified addresses for all but 1,801 of the undeliverables: a. Rust first sent all 26,760 undeliverable notices without a forwarding address to Transunion for skip tracing. Transunion address traces are performed by running records through an automated batch process where last known name and address information will be used to find more current address information. Transunion provides additional locator services using an assortment of consumer footprint information. The Transunion skip tracing returned 15,538 successful updated addresses. b. Following the Transunion skip trace, the remaining undeliverables were sent to Experian for further skip tracing. Experian utilized its proprietary matching process to identify the individuals Rust was attempting to contact, and attempted to identify any more recent addresses that Experian has in its databases for these individuals. Experian s matching process utilizes information submitted by Rust; the class member s Name, SSN, and Address information, to find that individual in their systems. Any individuals with more recent addresses were delivered back to Rust. Experian s databases include identification and mailing data from a multitude EXHIBIT 1

7 Case: 1:06-cv Document #: Filed: 07/03/18 Page 3 of 5 PageID #:18572 of sources that they have access to internally. That skip tracing resulted in an addition, 1,047 address updates. c. In addition to the Transunion and Experian skip tracing, 6,968 class members contacted Rust Consulting directly with address updates, and 226 class members provided Loevy and Loevy with address updates, which Loevy and Loevy in turn provided to Rust. d. As an additional step, the Illinois Department of Corrections provided a list of all current inmates, as well as the last known address for inmates on parole. Rust Consulting checked those addresses against the Class List, which resulted in 302 additional updated addresses. e. Finally, for addresses that could not be located using any of the above steps, Rust Consulting conducted a final round of skip tracing through Clear Trace. Clear Trace combines real-time data with advanced skip tracing tools which looks at contact information, including new or moved information. Clear Trace skip tracing resulted in 878 successful address updates. FUND DISTRIBUTION 5. As of June 27, 2018, 63,288 checks have been mailed to class members, each in the amount of $300.66, for a total of $19,028, As of the most recent reconciliation: a. 42,899 checks have cashed, for a total of $12,898, b. 20,389 checks that were sent out have not been cashed. Those checks can be further broken out as follows: i. 13,703 checks were mailed out and not returned, and thus presumed to be delivered, have reached the void date listed on those checks, for a total of $4,119, in uncashed checks. ii. 6,478 checks have been returned as undeliverable, for a total of $1,947, in uncashed checks. EXHIBIT 1

8 Case: 1:06-cv Document #: Filed: 07/03/18 Page 4 of 5 PageID #:18573 iii. 208 Class Members have requested that Rust Consulting reissue their checks have been sent checks, but have not yet cashed those checks, for a total of $62, in outstanding checks with a July 29, 2018 void date. Because those 208 Class Members specifically requested these checks and provided an address to send the checks, Rust reasonably expects that these checks will be cashed. 6. As of June 27, 2018, in addition to the 63,288 checks which were sent, there were 1,548 Class Members who could not be located in the notice plan, and who did not contact Rust to provide an updated address. Those 1,548 Class Members were therefore not sent checks. 7. On April 30, 2018, in an effort to locate and learn about those who had a returned check, Rust sent, at the time, all 7,748 checks which were returned to the Social Security Administration database for a deceased search. 406 records were returned as deceased and no further action will be taken on these records. 8. Through the above-described measures, Rust Consulting submits that it has exhausted reasonable efforts to locate updated addresses for Class Members. 9. In consultation with Class Counsel, Rust recommends distributing nearly all of the remaining funds, including the amount of the uncashed checks that have reached their void dates, to the 42,899 Class Members who have cashed their initial checks from the Young Insurance settlement (plus the 208 Class Members who have contacted Rust with updated address information and requested new checks). Although this means that approximately 20,000 Class Members will not receive payment from the Young Insurance case, Rust submits that it does not have a reasonable method to find those Class Members. Nonetheless, given that there is one more round in distribution of funds, in consultation with Class Counsel, Rust recommends holding back $100,000 from the Young Insurance settlement to compensate additional Class Members who cannot currently be located but who might contact Rust or Class Counsel (for example, if they contact Class Counsel or Rust with an updated address). EXHIBIT 1

9 Case: 1:06-cv Document #: Filed: 07/03/18 Page 5 of 5 PageID #:18574 I declare under penalty of perjury that the foregoing is true and correct. Executed this 2 nd day of July, 2018, in Minneapolis, MN. Jason M. Stinehart EXHIBIT 1

10 Case: 1:06-cv Document #: Filed: 07/03/18 Page 1 of 1 PageID #:18575 EXHIBIT 2