TYLER'S TOLL: Casey council landfill victims win $23.5M compo

The Chief Executive of Casey council Mike Tyler is under pressure to resign today after his failure to ensure his municipal landfill was safe prompted a legal settlement where his council and the Environmental Protection Agency have had to cough up $23.5 million to victims of the toxic gases coming from the dump.

Inquiries conducted by the Victorian Ombudsman into Tyler’s conduct and the landfill revealed that he threatened and intimidated EPA staff to discourage them from attending council premises. Tyler has served as the council CEO throughout the construction and operation of what became a dangerous landfill and has been closely identified by concerned locals with all that went wrong. Many believe he was criminally negligent.

Slater and Gordon issued a press release today announcing the large settlement:

More than 750 Brookland Greens estate home owners affected by gas leaks from a disused landfill site in Cranbourne will be compensated following a landmark $23.5 million settlement submitted to the Supreme Court of Victoria today by national law firm Slater & Gordon.

Slater & Gordon launched a class action with lead plaintiffs Matthew and Theresa Wheelahan in November 2008, after high levels of methane gas were detected in houses at Brookland Greens estate on August 31 that year. The gas leaks sparked an emergency response at the time.

Slater & Gordon Practice Group Leader Ben Hardwick heralded the settlement scheme as a win for the property owners “whose home and financial lives have been in limbo for more than two years”.

“There will be relief in Cranbourne tonight as home owners know that this legal fight is coming to an end and that the City of Casey and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) have accepted the fact that the residents deserve compensation,” Mr Hardwick said.

“Our clients have been determined, they’ve stuck together and they’ve displayed a high degree of patience throughout this process. Today a win has been delivered and they can start to move on with their lives.”

“Matthew and Theresa Wheelahan must be congratulated for their courage in being the lead plaintiffs and carrying the burden and knowledge that if their claim failed then they would have to cover the legal costs.”

Mr Hardwick said the compensation payment would account for issues that have arisen in relation to property values and their ability to use and enjoy their properties.

Mr and Mrs Wheelahan welcomed the announcement.

“There has been a lot stress and anxiety amongst residents since the evacuation advice was given in August 2008,” Mr Wheelahan said.

“We have had to live with a great deal of uncertainty and disruption for the past two and a half years.

“We put up with noise, odours, dust and a loss of privacy as they have undertaken a lot of work to fix the landfill site.

“Many of us purchased our homes in good faith, that we were moving to a new development that had been properly developed, but we were let down by the council and the EPA.”

Mr Hardwick said the case was a warning to those responsible for managing sensitive sites.

“This is a significant case for environmental law in Australia. This successful settlement sends a message to all councils and authorities managing environmentally sensitive sites that it is critical to properly address the risks such as landfill gas migration, and to do it prudently.

“We believe this case could have been averted had there been some relatively cost-effective preventative measures adopted at an earlier time. It is pleasing that in 2010 the EPA stepped up to the plate and imposed strict environmental performance measures for the clean up of the site.”

Slater & Gordon ran the case on a No Win – No Fee basis.  The settlement submitted to the court will see property owners sharing in at least $17.25 million from the payout, with the remainder to cover the plaintiffs and group members’ legal costs, including experts.

“This claim has been a highly complex and a very large piece of litigation which involved 14 parties and their legal representatives. The claim was so large that the Supreme Court in Victoria was forced to utilise rooms at the Federal Court for pre-trial hearings.”

Mr Hardwick said individual compensation payments were expected to range between $6,000 and $130,000. Individual payments to clients will not be disclosed.

He said the individual payments would reflect the strengths and weaknesses of each property owner’s claims.

“The payment amount will depend on a range of factors, particularly their proximity to the former landfill site.”

Today the Supreme Court of Victoria has approved the issuing of notices to all group members about the settlement scheme. Slater & Gordon will begin to contact its clients today.

“This claim could never have proceeded without the property owners being able to come together under our class action system.

“Slater & Gordon is proud to have backed the property owners in their case for compensation. We are particularly pleased for our clients that it has resolved before entering into a long and expensive trial.”

PREDATORS UNITE: Sol Lew rescues accused flirt-merchant Mark McInnes with $100K per week

Disgraced corporate-predator Sol Lew – who narrowly avoided a prison sentence after taking tens of millions of dollars from public company Coles Myer to prop up his then tottering empire in the infamous Yannon transaction – has hired disgraced accused sex-predator and ex-David Jones boss Mark McInnes to run his young womens’ apparel business on a salary package of $5.2 million per annum.

GST GREED
The billionaire Lew recently further damaged public regard for himself by demanding the imposition of GST on every single online purchase from overseas, which if implemented would cause lengthy delays in delivery, huge costs to taxpayers that would outweigh the revenue generated and increased costs on value-conscious consumers. The reaction to Lew’s poorly-considered public statements – amateurishly co-ordinated by his spin-doctor former Simon Crean staffer and ACTU goon Michael McLeod – was so overwhelming that retail analysts believed it boosted awareness of the fact that online shopping is cheaper than traditional retail in Australia by as much as 35%. Indeed, eBay Australia have recently exploited Lew’s gaffe, launching a campaign drawing attention to their site being an excellent alternative to bricks-and-mortar retail. The whole GST push was one of the most self-defeating foolish public-relations fiascos of all time. And showed the dangers of Lew running around, as it were, half-cocked.

McInnes was the high-flying CEO of David Jones until he was accused by a DJ’s publicist of sexually harassing her. Many thought the publicist’s lawyers had mishandled the whole dispute but it certainly had a devastating effect on the company’s usually unsullied reputation and was thought to have made him unemployable. It didn’t do her much good either, with broken promises to pay any damages to a womens’ charity and so on.

EXPENSIVE FLIRT-MERCHANT
After much public brawling David Jones and McInnes agreed to pay the harassed 25 year-old woman $850,000 in compensation, a large amount that could potentially worry shareholders in Lew’s womens’ apparel business Premier Investments. The company employs many hundreds of young women also. The harassment victim initially claimed $37 million and while she was never going to get that sort of award, it was enough to cause grave concern among David Jones’ shareholders at the time.

The publicist’s statement of claim made damning accusations about McInnes and his track-record of being a sexual-predator as breathlessly reported at the time by the Sydney Morning Herald, it’s not unreasonable to say some of this conduct verged on sexual assault:

(The 25 year old woman) alleges she informed David Jones management about Mr McInnes’s unwelcome advances on several occasions, and on one occasion was told: “Next time that happens, you just need to be very clear and say ‘no Mark’ and he’ll back off.” (The 25 year old woman) alleges that Mr McInnes made unwelcome comments of a sexual nature and unwelcome sexual advances towards her at a lunch function on May 23 celebrating the renewal of a David Jones contract with racing identity Gai Waterhouse. McInnes urges (the 25 year old woman) to try a dessert by saying the dessert was like a f— in the mouth,” the statement of claim alleges that he said to her. He later allegedly placed his hand under her clothes, touching her bra strap and repeatedly asked her to accompany him to his Bondi home “where the clear implication [was] that such as visit would be for the purpose of sexual intercourse”, the claim alleges.

(The 25 year old woman) claims she made it clear his conduct was unwelcome and had attempted to use distracting banter to deflect the sexually suggestive conversation. The claim alleges Mr McInnes made no effort to conceal his conduct from other employees that day. The following day, Mr McInnes sent (the 25 year old woman) a series of emails which repeated that she meet him at his home, the claim says. On June 7, they attended a function at a private home in Rose Bay for La Prairie cosmetics at which (the 25 year old woman) alleges Mr McInnes repeated his desire for her to go home with him before trying to kiss her on the mouth while putting his arm around her.

“McInnes then again attempted to kiss (the 25 year old woman) on the mouth while placing his hand on (The 25 year old woman)’s stomach before moving it under her clothes so that his hand reached the bottom of [her] bra while [she] was pulling away from his unwelcome touch and turning to the left so that he could not kiss her on the mouth,” the statement of claim alleges.

Lew, frequently in the company of attractive female personal trainers, gym instructors and such in his recent 40-kilo-shedding health-craze that has featured a notorious course of diet-pills, litres of fresh fruit-juice from the Collins Place juice-bar, lengthy “work-outs” with his trainers, power-walks around “the Tan” with Graeme Samuel and equally lengthy spells on the toilet, according to well-placed gossips, will be keen to ensure McInnes keeps his mind on the job.

He has structured the flirt-merchant’s $5.2 million package in such a way to provide as much incentive ad possible with about half of it linked to improving profitability in the group. We’re all for second chances but Premier shareholders will be hoping McInnes treats the group’s female staff and customers with respect and courtesy at all times. If there’s another incident, Lew could face massive legal liability himself.