As in court-ordered settlements, the payouts are based on projected earning power and factors like pain and suffering.
The problem is that most of the coming large expenditures are the result of court-ordered settlements in suits brought by Federal and state environmental regulators.
One lawyer who pushed his non-Indian clients to back the settlement said that refusing to negotiate, if it led to a court-ordered settlement, could be disastrous for everyone.
The reassessment was mandated by a court-ordered settlement of a 1997 lawsuit charging that the old system put an unfair burden on homeowners in black and Hispanic neighborhoods.
"The extreme difficulty of this makes a mockery out of the fact that you have a court-ordered settlement and yet it's not collectable."
The Reagan Administration will seek to remove from court-ordered settlements those districts that courts think have eliminated racial discrimination.
Frito-Lay is currently under investigation by the agency for possible anticompetitive practices, and has been the subject of a similar inquiry that resulted in a court-ordered settlement.
A recent court-ordered settlement makes about one million square miles of ocean available for such testing but that, apparently, is insufficient.
Janet Acker, an advocate for foster children, commended the parties for avoiding a traditional court-ordered settlement and praised the idea of increased state monitoring.
As part of a court-ordered settlement of that suit, Nassau agreed to reassess residential properties.
