A Court Order, entered this morning, Oct. 16th, at the Federal Courthouse in Greeneville, TN, in the Sixth District of U.S. Federal Court, authorizes distribution of Dean Settlement Payment #3 in the Southeast Milk Litigation.

A motion requesting authorization of this distribution, number 3 of 5 total, was filed with the Court on July 24, 2014. Several additional motions and responses were filed following this motion, which asked the Court for clarification concerning a claimant’s eligibility to receive Settlement Funds.

This request was filed on behalf of a party who became a board member of one of the defendant co-ops following the original Dean Foods/SMA Settlement Agreement, but before the DFA payment schedule was finalized.

As a part of the original Settlement Agreements, board members of the defendant co-ops were excluded from eligibility to receive settlement funds. The Court had to review and evaluate several lengthy documents before entering today’s Order.

Rust Consulting, the claims administrator, can now begin processing the checks and mailing them to Class Members. Members can expect to receive an amount similar to the checks they received in September of 2013.

Following this payment cycle, there will be two additional payments left in the Dean Foods Settlement sector of the SE Milk Litigation. Those payments are scheduled to occur in 2015 and 2016. The Dean Settlement payments were allocated in this manner:
a.) Payment 1 – 40% of total over 5-year payment period (Received by class members of January of 2013)
b.) Payment 2 – 15% of total (Received by class members in September/Early Fall of 2013)
c.) Payment 3 – 15% of total (Authorized Oct, 16, 2014; should be received by Nov. 2014)
d.) Payment 4 – 15% of total (Expected Fall of 2015)
e.) Payment 5 – 15% of total (Expected Fall of 2016) (Final Payment in Dean Foods Settlement)

Below are the four pages in today’s court order. These pages make references to several predecessor documents in the litigation, some of which may be found at the official website, http://www.southeastdairyclass.com.