5 PM Deadline Today To Submit Letters To McInnes Cooper For Justice Barnes Review

This a cut and paste out of my submission to court, I have removed some items of repeat or not that important till D Day. Have a read ask questions re read before you jump off a cliff.
Rags


5. I am thankful for the efforts of the lead plaintiff Dennis Manage and the legal team McInnes Cooper for bring this to a proposed settlement today. But unfortunately I do not support this class action settlement as proposed. The proposal in general on many of the common and basic issues I can support but there are several areas which require change before the proposal can be considered fair and reasonable to all parties. Furthermore there has been very little time to digest the proposal as a class since gag orders and little information on the details has been brought forward till know. Even at this late point there has been no information forth coming from SISIP as to where a class member fits in and absolutely no time for proper information to seek proper legal, tax or medical advice on the issues before acceptance of the proposal.
6. With this in mind there are four specific issues which must be addressed before acceptance of the proposed settlement, these are:
A. More Time Needed - More time needs to be allotted to review the proposal so class members can make informed decisions. Class has had less than 30 days to receive, review and craft a response;
B. The Right to Participate - The class has not been given the right to participate in the decision making process until now;
c. Key Wording Leaves Out Vets - The use of Zero Sum as a criteria to define vets that should be given special access to reassessment or immediate early cash payments is flawed; and
D. Legal Fees for Action - The legal fees for the Class should be paid in whole or in part by the Defense. Furthermore the fees don't reflect the typical results of past similar case. Fees should be 3% to 4% on total payout.

STATEMENT

A: The Limited Amount of Time to Prepare for Proposed Settlement Arguments
1. There has been very little time to review, digest and understand the proposed settlement. In fact less than 3 weeks due to gag orders and actually getting the document in our hands to read.
2. The gag was removed on the 9th of January 2013 and we did not start receiving the notice for a week.
3. We have to have responses into the class legal team for today's hearing by the 7th of February 2013. That leaves approximately 3 weeks to read, gather information, gather advice understand, and craft a response.....all while being disabled. It would take a lawyer 30 days to digest the document and craft a response let alone wounded soldiers with no legal back ground and short cash cause SISIP is holding significant portions of their income.
4. More time must be given to the class to understand and digest the settlement to include time to gather information from SISIP as to their position in the class. The ability to seek legal counsel and the simple time to layout how the settlement will affect them financial with regards to key issues such as taxes, fees, reassessments of disability and so on. In reality is many of us don't understand what we are agreeing to in the details due to shortness of time and lack of information.
5. Solution - Give us more time to respond to the proposal such as 60 days.




B: The Right of the class to Participate
1. The class has not had the opportunity to represent themselves fully during the negotiations or crafting the prosecution. Federal class action allows for class members to participate in the decision making process detailed at article 299.25.
2. The lead plaintiff represents only one aspect of a large and diverse class action with common issues. The proposed settlement focuses on a specific type of class member while others are left to find their position by reading between the lines or applying common sense which does not work in a legal agreement when you're dealing with SISIP who have shown by their actions they cannot be trusted to do the right thing.
3. The class counsel should have accepted several other lead plaintiffs to assist in crafting the settlement proposal so it reflects all the members clearly. Federal class action rules allow for this inclusion of multiple lead plaintiffs if necessary or at very least had representatives guiding the result from each area of the class.
4. In this case the class easily breaks up into several groups who each have a foundation of common issues but have several nuances' that separate them. To ensure fairness of needs that define them they should have been given lead plaintiffs or advisors to guide McInnes Cooper as Dennis did for his specific class concerns.
5. The smaller groups with special needs are listed below as general representation of the differences and this is not an exact or complete list of details but a general over view of the different groups within the class, they are as follows:
A) Members of the class who's DVA benefits were clawed back by SISIP that are deceased;
B) Members of the class who's DVA benefits were clawed back by SISIP post 99 to new Charter;
C) Members of the class who's DVA benefits were clawed back by SISIP pre 99.
D) Members of the class who's DVA benefits were clawed back by SISIP post new Veterans charter; and
E) Members of the RCMP.(not sure why they are excluded)
8. As a note of reference the lead plaintiff would fall into Item B above.
9. I have seen no input from members of the class other then Dennis and he has done an amazing job, but on reading the proposed settlement I know there are no inputs from class members such as I find myself in. Otherwise Zero Sum would only apply to a small group of the class and would not be an all encompassing word for the entire class throughout the entire proposal. That word alone limits many vets from a full claim.
10. I offered advice and others to assist McInnis Cooper during the early going and was told they would call if they needed any....guess they think they did not. I suggest now is the time for that input. It is our right as class members.
11. Solution - Direct Class action counsel to add several class members of diverse sub groups to represent the class along with Mr Manage.

C: Key Wording Zero Sum Misses Disabled Vets
1. The use of the word Zero Sum is a poor criteria for selecting special attention for the most in need disabled vets who require re assessment. It is a wording that is all encompassing in the document and cuts out large groups of members of the class who are severely disabled. Virtually all groups identified in the proposed settlement there are four of them have some form of Zero Sum in the text to qualify them for support.
2. Paragraph 11 of the proposal details the class members who can get support in this action. In each of the four groups of the class who can qualify for support everyone of these groups has a Zero Sum as a criteria to qualify. The only other area that qualifies class members is Paragraph 16 and it also uses Zero Sum as a pre qualifier.
3. Zero Sum should maybe have been used for a single group within the class but it proliferates throughout all aspects of the document and being a flawed criteria has a huge negative impact. I am in the class by virtue of the 2 year gift on release (post 99) but I'm sure not protected for re assessment when I walked away from SISIP due to the claw back. This despite the fact I'm many times more disabled then vets who by virtue of zero sum can get reassessment.
4. Zero Sum is flawed criteria because DVA is not linked to pay and service years for pension but for disability pain and suffering. A better criteria for the class action to use would be a % number from DVA such as 75% or higher pensioned members of DVA who were clawed back can be reassessed. If they walked away from SISIP due to almost total claw back or the knowledge that they would be a total claw back in near future.
5. I will detail an example of two soldiers to emphasize the flawed nature of the use of Zero Sum. The examples will show how a non disabled vet who is released for non training or battle injuries can be reassessed because he is zero sum only due to his years of service and pay on release. And how a battle wounded soldier released for wounds and severely disabled is not Zero Sum only due to his length of service and pay on release.
6. An example of the flawed criteria is as follows.
A) Soldier 1 - Zero Sum (Non Disabled) Released for non attributable military service -
(i) A Cpl with 8 years of service with a few wear and tear injuries from their years of service has a DVA claim in for 50%. He was release medically 10 years ago for non military attributable illness such as diabetes. He is not disabled and his diabetes release will not stop him from working in the future. His release was not attributable military service.
(ii) When you calculate the 75% of pension of the soldier and add the 50% DVA all his SISIP money to top him up to 75% is clawed back thus he is Zero Sum.
(iii) Due to him being Zero Sum he has the ability to be reassessed for SISIP after his 2 years SISIP expired 8 years ago.
(iv) He won't get it but the point is he is protected in the proposal to get access! He has a right to access due to zero sum which is solely based on pay and service.
B) Soldier 2 - Not Zero Sum (Disabled) Released for wounds in battle all attributable military service -
(i) A Captain with 20 years of service and severe injuries from being blown up overseas has a DVA claim in for 85%. He has another potential 30% in arbitration and awaiting result that will take 2 plus years. Those results will take longer than the initial 2 years SISIP LTD. He was released medically 10 years ago for injuries sustained in war thus attributable to military service. He is disabled. He cannot work effectively.
(ii) When you calculate 75% of pension of the soldier and add the 85% DVA all but a small portion of his SISIP is clawed back thus he is Not Zero Sum. when his other arbitrated 30% DVA comes in he will be close to all money being clawed back if not all. Thus he is Not a Zero Sum.
(iii) Due to him being Not Zero Sum he cannot be reassessed by SISIP for future or past due payments when his SISIP expired 8 years ago.
(iv) If he walked away from SISIP. As many soldiers in this situation did because getting 10 50 or 100 bucks from SISIP then and losing all of it when final DVA arrives after appeals has them walk away. This soldier should be the priority for reassessment and protected by the proposed settlement but he has no appeal.

7. There will be arguments that in the fine print there is an area paragraph 16 of the proposal to help these soldiers but the key issue is they walked away so did nothing else to qualify such as Para 16 details.
8. The selection of zero sum is wrong and cuts many disabled soldiers out of retro for years and years of future payments with no recourse. It would appear that this poor selection of a criteria was either poor knowledge on the part of MC and lead plaintiff who was not in this category and failed to see the impact of Zero Sum or GOC and SISIP ensured this was criteria push forward as they knew full well how many non zero sum people who had large DVA disabilities were out there.
9. The inclusion of this group will raise the class action substantially higher. An example such as myself would be retro $280k and future payments of $320K. I am as it now stands along with many other non zero sum with 100% DVA pensions out of this class action after the initial 2 years is paid.
10. This is fundamentally unfair as the ability to be reassessed should have us as the priority and we are cut out.
11. The use of Zero Sum discriminates against a group of vets in the class who due only to length of service and pay grade lose the right to be re assessed.
12. A criteria as all encompassing for reassessment as zero sum is should have been selected more carefully.
13. The use of the wording ZERO SUM is a poor criteria for describing disabled vets in need of attention or re assessment. The use of this word cuts out many class members from claiming reassessment because they walked away due to total claw back or close to total claw back.
14. Solution - Add a 5th Group to the proposal that clearly states non zero sum class members with large DVA awards who walked away after initial 2 years can be re assessed and retroactive back to when SISIP terminated their file. Same as a Zero Sum Group 2 class member.

D: Legal Fees for Action
1. Legal fees have two distinct aspects to this settlement which are unacceptable. One the class has to shoulder this burden when it was clear from the start this was an inappropriate claw back, the defense knew this and was apprised of this often over the years and forced the plaintiff to take it to court. The impact of the fees on the class comes directly out of the moneys they should have received for being disabled. It is not like its coming out of punitive damages. The Defense should pay in whole or in part the legal fees of the class. Two the Fees should be set in keeping with normal practice of class action law suits of this payout size. That would call for a fee of 3 to 4 % if the total payout is 100% of the about one billion dollars it is estimated to be. This unlike other class actions will have an almost 100% payout.
2. Solution - Direct Defense to pay all or a significant portion of Class legal fees. Define reasonable pay for McInnes Cooper based on past class action fees for class actions of this size and payout factor. Typically 3 to 4 % on total payout.

CONCLUSION

1. Due to the 4 key issues above that need to change in the proposal coupled with the lack of time and information available at this time to form a informed decision on the settlement proposal. I cannot support the proposed settlement.
2. Therefore I ask the honorable court to do four things;
1) Delay the decision on settlement so the class has time to review the agreement in full and how it relates to them.
2) Direct the parties to renegotiate the issue of Zero Sum criteria to clearly protect class members identified as non zero sum who have large DVA pension awards so they have same rights for re assessment as zero sum members detailed in Group 2.
3) Set the Fees schedule to the average of 3 to 4% for a billion dollar class action based on past awards in the billion dollar range and this will be a 100% payout; and
4) Direct the defense to pay all or a significant portion of costs and fees incurred by Plaintiff and Class.
3. Thank you for giving me this chance to present my arguments as a member of the class who to date has been unable to have input to ensure all wounded vets are protected by this judgement.

Same here Rags, see you on Thursday.

same same rags.

propat

Freedom of speech is your political right Rags and I respect and support your right of expression. Sparrow

Well not until you hear me read it, some may not like that I want a few changes and delay.

Admirable Rags.

thats great rags.

propat

I submitted a 16 page brief today and got receipt of my chance to present to the court.

sisipltdsettlement@mcinnescooper.com


I know you all know this but I posted for the benefit of viewers who may not be aware of the email address or deadline..


Sparrow