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A $10-million lawsuit settlement will be approved by an Ontario judge nearly 14 years after the roof of an Elliot Lake mall collapsed killing two women and injuring 19 others.

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On Friday, Justice Benjamin Glustien listened to a presentation by all parties and said he is moving forward with the agreement.

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“I will be approving the settlement,” the judge said during the hearing, according to BayToday.ca. “No matter what we do here, it’s never going to change the day that happened. But at least it can do something towards fairness and towards closure for people who were involved.”

Roof leaking for years before collapse

The rooftop parking lot of the Algo Centre Mall collapsed on June 23, 2012, killing Lucie Aylwin, 37, and Delores Perizzolo, 74. The roof had been leaking into the shopping centre for years.

“We know that the roof leaked from the day it was built and yet nobody fixed it,” a lawyer representing the victim’s families told the Sudbury Star in 2013.

In early March, the families of Aylwin and Perizzolo as well as other victims who were seeking damages were informed that a proposed settlement had been reached, contingent on a judge’s approval.

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“The settlement agreement was reached in the context of multi-year settlement mediation sessions (that were conducted first by a retired judge from the Court of Appeal and more recently by the former Chief Justice of the Court of Appeal), and after various court hearings and decisions, the exchange of relevant documents by the parties, the plaintiffs completed any examinations for discovery of the Defendants, and the scheduling of a summary judgment motion for last fall,” Toronto law firm Roy O’Connor LLP said in the update.

The civil case, known as Quinte vs Eastwood Mall et al, was launched shortly after the disaster and was certified two years later. The plaintiffs had initially asked for $30 million in damages.

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Damages spread out among defendants

The City of Elliot Lake is on the hook for $3.5 million while Algoma Central Properties, a subsidiary of Algoma Central Corporation, which built the mall in 1979, will pay $2 million.

In addition, Eastwood Mall Inc. and its president Bob Nazarian, which owned the mall in 2012, is responsible for $1.745 million. The company that owned the mall between 1997 and 2005, Retirement Living and its for-profit arm NorDev, will each pay $1 million.

The engineering firm that inspected the mall two months before the roof collapsed will pay $730,000 while the province of Ontario will write a cheque for $400,000.

Also, the company that provided the hollow core slabs for the rooftop parking deck will pay $225,000 and the original architect on the project, James Keywan, is responsible for $175,000.

None of the defendants have admitted liability under the settlement’s terms.

The mall was closed following the collapse and later demolished.

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