An Atlanta lawyer said his client is happy to pay a $1.45 million settlement he negotiated in a class action lawsuit over property damage in Montana.

That’s because it would have cost Montana Power Co. more than that to defend itself at trial, according to Nicholas Panayotopoulos, a partner at Weinberg Wheeler Hudgins Gunn & Dial. He added that the lawsuit had been pending for 16 years and the plaintiffs—about 3,500 of them—had asked for tens of millions of dollars combined.