Under the settlement, all employees who did not receive their health benefits are to be fully reimbursed. Lawyers still are working out how to handle situations in which collection agencies were hired.

It is not clear how much money is involved in the settlement, but employees' problems with the health plan date back at least a year.

The suit was initially filed U.S. District Court in Hammond by Leann Elder, a former Illiana employee who lives in Cedar Lake. The suit claimed that while Illiana made payroll deductions for the purpose of contributing to its self-funded employee benefit health care plan, the company failed to transfer those deductions to the plan to pay for her medical care during her employment. As a result, Elder was forced to pay bills in the thousands to medical providers and accumulated bills she was not able to pay.

Due to the quick settlement, an exact number of plaintiffs could not be reached. Most of the employees were from Lake County and in at least one case, an employee was battling cancer during the period of the payment problems.