Carson residents living for years atop an old oil-waste dump are suing the famed personal injury attorney who negotiated their $120 million legal settlement, claiming his firm is hoarding millions it should have disbursed long ago.

Thomas Girardi, who has won more than $1 billion for victims of severe pollution, prescription-drug side effects and other hazards during a storied career, and his powerhouse Los Angeles law firm, Girardi-Keese, are named in the suit filed last month by residents of the polluted Carousel tract neighborhood.

Some residents have been paid in full since the July 2016 settlement with those responsible for the toxic soup that lies beneath their homes, while others have received only a fraction of the proceeds. For months the Carousel residents have been waging a war of words with Girardi-Keese, claiming the delays in getting the funds to everyone are inexcusable.

“Almost a year later we received a piddly amount to placate us and a bunch of unfounded excuses why they continue to hold onto our money,” said Barbara Post, president of the Carousel Tract Homeowners Association. “We just want what is ours and to get Girardi-Keese out of our lives forever.”

No one in the Carousel tract neighborhood knows how much of the total settlement has been paid out yet. Or, for that matter, what the balance is in the trust account where Girardi is legally required to hold their funds.

The 50-acre Carousel tract, in south Carson along the Wilmington border, was built on land formerly occupied by a Shell Oil Co. tank farm that was dismantled in the late 1960s. Tons of waste oil and tank pieces were secretly buried by the property developer, Barclay Hollander Corp., which has since dissolved into Dole Food Co.

The oil, left just a few feet beneath the ground on a parcel where 285 homes would later be built, exposed residents to cancer-causing benzene and other toxic chemicals for decades.

A few years after the pollution was discovered during routine testing in 2008, Girardi was hired by 1,491 current and former Carousel tract residents. Eight years of legal wrangling later, his firm negotiated a $90 million settlement with Shell Oil for health and property damage in the neighborhood. A second $30 million settlement with Dole Food Co., which owns the property developer, is pending.

Girardi-Keese also negotiated more than $100 million in environmental cleanup of yards across the neighborhood.

Dole and Shell are battling in court over who will ultimately have to pay all the bills.

Girardi-Keese’s share of the $90 million settlement will be at least $36 million, and the firm will get another $12 million from the Dole proceeds.

Interest demanded

The suit against Girardi-Keese argues the firm refuses to give Carousel residents a thorough accounting of the money. It also demands that residents receive interest accrued on the large sum sitting in the bank, but the law firm insists that money must be turned over to the State Bar.

“Defendants knew that they had the obligation to invest the settlement proceeds in interest-bearing accounts that would accrue to the benefit of the plaintiff, but recklessly or intentionally violated such obligation,” the suit states.

Girardi has thus far not provided an accounting of the settlement money to Woodland Hills attorney Peter Dion-Kindem, according to his complaint. Dion-Kindem is now seeking court permission to begin a class action against Girardi-Keese.

But Girardi and firm attorney Robert Finnerty say they are being unfairly attacked by residents they’re simply trying to help.

“This lawyer (Dion-Kindem) is the lowest-end lawyer in the country,” Girardi said in a phone interview. “He runs around, door to door, trying to sue lawyers who have cases with many people.”

Dion-Kindem also is seeking money from Girardi, in a separate matter, for a former client who says the attorney still owes him $5 million from a 1988 case against Lockheed Martin.

Residents frustrated

Several residents say the firm either won’t return their calls or responds with nonsense or “double talk” when asked for an accounting of their individual settlement proceeds.

“If there is a specific reason the full and final payment cannot be made immediately, the courtesy of proper notification, in writing, is expected. Make good on your promises NOW,” one unnamed resident wrote in a letter to the firm that was shared with the Daily Breeze.

Girardi and Finnerty have repeatedly assured residents they are working as hard as they can to process their funds. Delays, they have said, are caused by inaccurate health insurance company billings, and residents who failed to turn in forms needed to process checks.

“We work about 12 hours a day, eight people, trying desperately to get this done,” Girardi said. “We would like some legal fees in this case as much as the people would.

“This has nothing to do with anything inappropriate at our law firm. Indeed, our State Bar record is totally clear. If we’d done anything inappropriate, that would certainly be an issue.”

Finnerty said that if residents would simply follow his directions, checks would come sooner.

“They’re not necessarily cooperating with us on any level other than to tell us we’re not doing what we’re supposed to be doing,” Finnerty said. “I think the only thing I can say is we are working as diligently as possible to complete our tasks. They need to continue to cooperate with us.”

In April, after saying they were inundated with calls and letters from angry Carousel residents, Girardi-Keese attorneys released a few million dollars in payments.

“The complications are that, these people, if they did have any medical expense, it was paid for by an insurance carrier, Medicare, Medicaid. And we have to get rid of those liens to get the money to the people,” Girardi said.

“Medicare and Medicaid are impossible to deal with. They cause these problems in any sort of mass-tort case like this. It’s a disaster. In one case, we have a maternity bill that had nothing to do with (this matter).

One resident, however, said medical issues aren’t a factor in her case, yet Girardi-Keese still hasn’t released her settlement.

“I have no medical claims, so that is a moot point in my case, yet still I’m getting the runaround on my check,” said the woman, who asked not to be named. “I sent off the demand letter and got a generic response. It’s unfathomable to me that Girardi-Keese has had our settlement money since May of 2016 and has not dispersed it.”

Past client disputes

Girardi, whose law firm proclaims itself a “voice of the injured since 1965,” rocketed to fame as part of the legal team that won a $333 million settlement from Pacific, Gas & Electric for poisoning the desert town of Hinkley with a chromium-6-laced drinking water supply. The lawsuit saga was dramatized in the 2000 feature film “Erin Brockovich,” which earned actress Julia Roberts a best-actress Oscar.

For Girardi-Keese, like other major law firms, disputes with clients are not uncommon, and some have led to legal action over the years.

Girardi has been sued for malpractice, fraud or breach of contract at least 22 times since 1995, according to court records. Because most of the disputes were settled, many case details are not available to the public.

At least seven of those suits came from former clients who alleged their cash settlements were withheld or misappropriated.

Girardi acknowledges no wrongdoing in any of the cases his firm has handled. Such cases can be complicated, he said, so delays are common. However, he declined to discuss the details of specific cases.

In one case, a group of elderly women who developed cancer after taking the hormone-therapy drug Prempro accused Girardi in 2014 of hoarding 6 percent of funds they won in a 2011 settlement he helped reach with Pfizer Inc. The women settled the lawsuit against Girardi-Keese last year for an undisclosed amount.

Like the Prempro clients, many of Girardi’s former Lockheed Martin clients sued the veteran attorney for settlements that were not dispersed. Some later were given additional money from Girardi, while at least one former client is still seeking $5 million through the courts.

Girardi helped litigate the Lockheed case in a series of identical lawsuits throughout the 1990s because it involved so many plaintiffs — former Burbank-area workers who were sickened building fighter jets from the 1960s to the 1980s. The multimillion-dollar settlement in the case included payment for punitive damages from Lockheed suppliers Exxon and Shell.

In the years following the Lockheed settlement, Girardi’s former clients repeatedly came forward alleging they didn’t receive all the money they were owed, according to legal records.

Additionally, an undisclosed settlement was reached with a group of former Lockheed clients in 2005. Following that win, dozens more of Girardi’s former clients filed suit for fraud and breach of contract.

Former Lockheed worker Luis Gutierrez and 25 others sued Girardi in 2008 for unpaid settlement funds. They argued it took them years to realize they were owed more money than they received, alleging Girardi concealed that fact. But a Los Angeles Superior Court judge threw the case out on grounds that there weren’t enough clients involved to constitute a class action.

Last year, another former Lockheed worker, Paul Kranich, filed allegations of fraud, breach of fiduciary duty, and violations of the Racketeer-Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act against Girardi in U.S. District Court.

But his case was dismissed for exceeding the three-year statute of limitations for filing a fraud allegation. Kranich, who claims Girardi still owes him $5 million from his 1988 case against Lockheed Martin, is now appealing that ruling.

“The judge basically said, ‘You should have known you were being cheated,’ ” Dion-Kindem said. “We alleged that they defrauded our client, took excessive fees and costs and concealed that. The clients don’t know what their costs were. They would get a check in the mail saying, ‘Here’s your share of this settlement.’ ”