(TNS) — Nearly five years after UPMC first realized it was in the midst of a mold outbreak that led to the deaths of at least eight people in three hospitals, UPMC and its linen cleaning contractor, Paris Cleaners of Dubois, Pa., have finally settled most of the remaining lawsuits they faced.

In court actions over the last two weeks, Allegheny County Common Pleas Judge Philip Ignelzi signed orders approving settlements between UPMC and Paris, and the attorneys for seven victims’ families, most of them likely for millions of dollars, according to attorneys who have been watching the cases proceed.

The amount of each settlement and the terms were not disclosed because Judge Ignelzi also signed an order sealing the settlements and keeping them from public view, a move different from the way the first two in the case were handled in 2017.

Neither UPMC, Paris, nor the plaintiff’s attorneys would comment about the settlements last week.

In the first two cases in 2016, each settled for a $1.35 million payment to the families and their attorneys — a payout figure that attorneys say probably was likely to increase for the subsequent cases that went through extensive discovery.

“I’m aware of the high value of those [new] settlements and terribly disappointed that my clients couldn’t participate in this case,” said Phil McCallister, an attorney who represented the family of Marlene Fenner, 70, who died in 2016 after allegedly contracting a mold infection at UPMC Presbyterian.

Mr. McCallister said the family initially filed a lawsuit, but decided to withdraw the case because they were going to have to exhume Ms. Fenner’s body and have an autopsy performed to prove she died of a mold infection.

“The family decided to just let her rest,” he said, and the case is not part of this new series of settlements.

The mold outbreak, which first became public in the fall of 2015 when just the first two cases were known, sent shockwaves across UPMC, resulting in multiple investigations — both by UPMC itself and the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

As a result, UPMC temporarily shut down its heart and lung transplant programs at UPMC Presbyterian Hospital, and made changes to the way it provides linens to immunocompromised patients, as well as how it administered antibiotics.

UPMC went so far as to fund its own nationwide study of 15 other transplant and cancer centers around the country to see if they could find mold on hospital linens — they did find mold on linens in other hospitals — a finding that was at the heart of most of the cases at UPMC, though it was dismissed as the cause for the earliest cases by the CDC.

UPMC spokeswoman Allison Hydzik said in an emailed statement last week that the UPMC study on linens and mold at other hospitals — which it published in the March 2019, edition of Clinical Infectious Diseases — was something UPMC promised to do.

“As an academic medical center, we have said all along that we’re committed to investigating this situation and sharing our findings with peer institutions,” she said in an emailed statement. “The authors were careful to note that the data does not link health care linens to infections.”

Settlements finalized over the last two weeks were for the following cases:

— Lyle C. Dearth, 47, of Friendly, W.Va. died Sept. 17, 2015, following a liver transplant at UPMC Montefiore.

— Katherine Landman, 44, of New Castle, who died Oct. 11, 2015, following a bone marrow transplant at UPMC Shadyside.

— Che DuVall, 70, of Perryopolis, who died Feb. 6, 2016, following a double lung transplant at UPMC Presbyterian.

— Marita Madsen, 65, of Shaler, who died Aug. 19, 2016, after being admitted for a blood transfusion at UPMC Shadyside.

— Daniel Krieg, 56, of St. Marys, who died July 9, 2016, after being admitted with pneumonia at UPMC Montefiore.

— John Haines, 65, of Upper St. Clair, who died Oct. 7, 2016, while being treated for leukemia and pneumonia at UPMC Shadyside.

— Asa Thompkins, who was diagnosed with a mold infection Jan. 31, 2016, following treatment for a colostomy hemorrhage at UPMC. He survived the infection.

There is one other case still pending in Allegheny County court that was not part of the settlement — the case of Larry B. Brown Jr., 49, of Latrobe.

Mr. Brown died May 10, 2017, after being treated in December 2014 and January 2015 at UPMC Shadyside, for a necrotic kidney, where he contracted a mold infection. His attorney did not return a call for comment.

The two prior cases settled for $1.35 million each in 2016 were: Tracy Fischer, 47, of Erie, who died Oct. 1, 2014, following a heart transplant at UPMC Presbyterian; and Shelby Slagle, 27, or Groveport, Ohio, who died June 26, 2015, following a heart transplant at UPMC Presbyterian.

Jim Dattilo, the attorney who represented the Fischer family, said those cases were left public despite a request that the settlements be sealed — a request made to the families by UPMC, according to the settlement document — because the judge overseeing the cases, Ronald Folino, refused to seal them.

“Judge Folino didn’t believe in sealed settlements and ordered them unsealed,” Mr. Dattilo said. “I agree with him in general. If tort law is going to work, the whole idea is to make the world a safer place, and the more knowledge people have, the better.”