Info Needed for 67 Outbreak Victims to Get Checks

By Walter F. Roche Jr.




The trustee for a fund established to pay victims of a deadly 2012 fungal meningitis outbreak is asking a federal judge to order a California law firm to explain why it has failed to submit paperwork so that 67 victims can get paid.
In a two-page motion filed today in U.S. District Court in Boston, Mass., Lynne F. Riley, the trustee, asked U.S. District Judge Rya Zobel to order the law firm of Andrews Thornton Higgins and Razmara to explain why it has not submitted the needed information.
She states in the motion that there are a total of 142 victims whose checks cannot be released because information relating to liens or outstanding claims against those victims' payments hasn't been submitted.
According to the motion Andrews Thornton has not responded despite "a significant lapse of time" since the information was requested.
Riley reported previously that substantially all of the eligible victims had been paid. In a report to the court she said a total of $149.4 million has been distributed to a little more than 2,000 victims.
The victims' fund was created during the bankruptcy of the New England Compounding Center, the now defunct Framingham, Mass. firm blamed for the outbreak that took the lives of at least 76 patients.
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