The Holian settlement: a deeper dive

As reported last week, parties to the Holian Insulation portion of the Grasley vs. Chemtool class action lawsuit met in court on Friday, June 27, 2025 to approve a second settlement for victims of the disastrous 2021 fire at the Chemtool factory in Rockton, Illinois. OSHA determined a Holian contractor accidentally released the pool of oil that started the fire. 

After the hearing, the Honorable Judge Stephen Balogh signed the order [PDF] and the motion [PDF]. Combined with the previous settlement amount, this brings the total Chemtool settlement to $100 million - probably a Winnebago County record.

This second agreement would provide $5.5 million dollars to class members, attorneys, and administration, paid by Holian Insulation, with Analytics Consulting, LLC as the settlement administrator and Huntington Bank as the escrow agent, following the same rules as the previous Chemtool settlement.

Once the Holian claims forms are available online and in the mail, residents could start filing claims by July 28, 2025. The final deadline for filing claims is 75 days later - October 13, 2025.

A closer reading of the Holian motion [PDF], which contains the preliminary settlement agreement, lays out how those $5.5 million dollars will be disbursed. Besides money for victims of the fire and smoke, two more sizable bills will be paid from this settlement fund: one to the settlement administrator and the second for attorneys' fees and expenses, which the settlement agreement refers to as a "Fee Award." The Fee Award to the attorneys, capped at 35% of the total settlement, would be $1.925 million. Huntington Bank will receive $47,674 for escrow fees, processing the claims, and computing how much each claimant will receive.

The remaining funds in the Holian account, $3,527,326, would be split in half and dispersed among claimants in the Rockton area. The first half of those funds ($1,763,663) will be dispersed to class members who suffered property damage - that is, owners of property less than three miles from Chemtool. The other 50% will be used to compensate the approved claimants who suffered from loss of use of their property - including renters - because of "evacuation, business interruption, and loss of use of real and personal property."

This preliminary agreement could add more claimants. Also, the settlement amount is substantially smaller than the Chemtool settlement 0f $94.5 million. So each claimant will receive a smaller amount than the first Chemtool payment. The agreement says, "On average [...] class members who submitted an approved claim [...] with Chemtool and Lubrizol received greater than ten thousand dollars ($10,000). If the same number of Class Members submit an approved claim here, the average payment is expected to be greater than $500."

The preliminary settlement agreement does set out for Analytics Consulting how claimants will be notified, can file claims, and object and opt out to the settlement.

For those that received payment from the Chemtool/Lubrizol settlement, they need do nothing to receive compensation from the Holian Insulation settlement. That is, they don't need to file another claim.

Those that are eligible to make a claim should receive a notice by July 28. This includes those who did not file before, or filed and did not receive compensation from the first settlement but who were living in the three mile radius on June 14, 2021. The notice will inform "class members of their rights and options, i.e. (1) submit a claim for monetary award, (2) opt out of the class, (3) object to the Settlement Agreement, or (4) do nothing." A "notice of proposed class action settlement with Holian Insulation Company, Inc" appears as Exhibit 2 in the Holian motion [PDF] (page 88). The order signed by Judge Balogh provides that the notice must be mailed to claimants and published in the Rockford Register Star within thirty calendar days after entry of his order, i.e. July 28, 2025.

1. To receive a monetary award, any resident who didn't already receive one must submit a claim by October 13, 2025.
2. Residents who want to hire their own attorney, who don't want to be represented by the class action attorneys, need to opt out in writing by Sept. 11, 2025. Item 13 of the Holian order provides instructions.
3. Any residents who object to the settlement need to submit their objection in writing by Sept. 11, 2025, signed by the resident and his or her own attorney. Item 16 of the Holian order [PDF] provides instructions.
4. Warning: residents who "do nothing" (neither file a claim nor an objection nor opt out in writing) by October 13, 2025 will not receive any money from the lawsuit and will not be able to file their own lawsuit either.

The Holian motion [PDF] also contains a preliminary draft of what will become the class action settlement claim form instructions (exhibit 1) on page 82. It is an early form and does not include final month and day filing dates. Only one claim form can be submitted per claimant. Once the claim form is final, additional claim forms or claim forms in Spanish can be copied yourself or by calling Analytics Consulting, the settlement administrator, at 833-457-5350.

One attorney still wants to be added to the list of class counsel so he can share in the $1.925 million Fee Award, despite some strong disagreement from other attorneys (which will be covered shortly in another article). But none of the parties listed in the settlement agreement objected to Judge Balogh signing that order after the hearing, which he did.

Analytics Consulting will set up a website by the end of July for online claims and information, at www.holianclassaction.com, as mentioned in order 11 of the Holian order [PDF], though the website was not active as of July 5, 2025. The Holian motion specifies that "This method is identical to the method approved by this Court in connection with the Class Settlement for Chemtool and Lubrizol, except that a new website address will be used: www.holianclassaction.com." That may not offer much comfort to many residents. Hundreds say that Chemtool claims they submitted by the previous methods were never received, resulting in Judge Balogh extending the filing deadline.

The Final Approval Hearing will be held on Thursday, Oct. 23, 2025 at 1:30 p.m. in Courtroom 3 of the Boone County Courthouse.

Related stories from our Chemtool archive

• Holian Insulation settles for $5.5 million in Chemtool fire
• Chemtool money begins flowing, with more to come
• Chemtool settlement nearing an end
• Chemtool explosion: more than a memory
• Analytics Consulting is still analyzing Chemtool claims
• Looks like Chemtool payments weren't sent in February
• Chemtool payments expected to be sent at end of January
• Update on Chemtool, sort of
• Why your property value affects your Chemtool settlement
• Chemtool payments waiting on assessed property values
• Chemtool deadline is Saturday, Nov. 23, 2024
• Residents will be able to resubmit Chemtool claims that didn't go through
• Chemtool claims from more than 100 Rockton residents may be missing
• Missing Chemtool claims are being investigated
• Judge approves Chemtool settlement
• Residents near Chemtool can file claims for a portion of the $94.5 million settlement
• Judge will issue preliminary approval of Chemtool settlement in next few weeks
• Blackhawk Acres residents can connect to Rockton water at no charge
• The unfolding legal chronicles of Chemtool, Lubrizol, Rockton, and Holian
• Chemtool cleans up, lawsuits warm up
• The EPA found metals in Rockton water in 2004, but not enough to keep testing for them.
• Heavy metals found in Rockton neighborhood groundwater, may not be new
• Chemtool finally estimates what burned in the fire and what was released over Rockton
• Chemtool hasn't released list of materials, says fire reduced everything to its elemental form
• Chemtool fire: officials claim they're gathering information, not holding it back
• Chemtool responds to state lawsuit
• State attorneys file suit against Chemtool for environmental recovery
• Environmental expert: be concerned about years, not days, of exposure to chemicals
• Rockton fire chief: Chemtool contractor released mineral oil, ignition occurred
• Chemtool fire dwindles, cleanup continues, lawsuits emerge
• Rockton air quality remains stable, Chemtool will pay for debris cleanup and evacuee expenses
• Chemtool employees still being paid, Rockton still under evacuation order
• Lubrizol employees in France think they've seen this smoke plume before
• Gov. Pritzker sends National Guard to respond to chemical fire in Rockton