Excerpt from article written by Richard B. Schmitt
Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal via Dow Jones
(Provided by Mr. Richard B. Schmitt)

In January, senior officials at Louisiana-Pacific Corp. drew attention to an  upbeat earnings report with an unusual stunt. They shaved their heads bald.

Now, some of their customers feel as if they are getting scalped.

In a bitter endgame to one of the biggest consumer class-action lawsuits  ever, Louisiana-Pacific is playing hardball to settle tens of thousands of  outstanding claims brought on behalf of homeowners who purchased allegedly  defective home-siding. The big building-products maker already has paid  about $375 million to settle as many as 75,000 claims from homeowner  plaintiffs, under a 1996 settlement pact. About 60,000 claims remain unpaid,  for an estimated total of $350 million.

Louisiana-Pacific now is offering to pay those remaining claimants just $125  million -- or about 35 cents on the dollar. And the betting on both sides of  the dispute is that the offer will get many takers. Last week, a  court-appointed administrator mailed a check for the new, discounted dollar figure to claimants, who need only cash the check to accept L-P's offer.

When the 1996 pact was reached, lawyers for both sides praised it as an  example of how the legal system can redress economic harm to huge numbers of  consumers whose individual losses are too small to make separate suits  feasible. But today, many homeowners aren't happy....

...The L-P siding, a concoction of wood scraps and resins, was installed on  about 800,000 homes around the country from 1985 to 1995. It warped prematurely, rotted in wet weather and sprouted mushrooms and other fungus.  Lawsuits sprouted as well, although L-P contended the problems stemmed  mostly from faulty installation.

December 22, 2002
Note: Louisiana-Pacific settlement closed and no further claims are being accepted.