A search for a Kelly and Sons settlement doesn’t lead to one case. Several U.S. and Canadian businesses have used variations of that name, and public records show three distinct matters that people are usually looking for: a 1989 Maryland bankruptcy involving R.L. Kelly and Sons, Millers; a 2008–2009 OSHA informal settlement with Edward Kelly and Sons Inc.; and a federal Miller Act lawsuit filed by John E. Kelly and Sons Electrical Construction. None of them is a consumer class action, and none involves a widely publicized payout.
R.L. Kelly and Sons, Millers Bankruptcy
R.L. Kelly and Sons, Millers was a Maryland general partnership that filed for bankruptcy in 1989 in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Maryland, Rockville, under docket 89-4-0193-SD. Separate individual petitions were filed for Austin S. Kelly, Earl L. Kelly, and Evelyn R. Kelly.
Creditors included Farmers and Mechanics National Bank, Manna Pro Corporation, Wilmer and Joyce Hostetter, and the Internal Revenue Service, among others. On March 14, 1991, the court issued a memorandum of decision addressing how competing creditor claims should be handled and how surplus proceeds should be divided where multiple creditors held claims against overlapping assets.
Available case documents do not describe a formal settlement agreement between the partnership and its creditors. The 1991 ruling appears to have resolved distribution disputes, but the specific payout terms are not laid out in the public record.
Edward Kelly and Sons Inc. OSHA Settlement
Edward Kelly and Sons Inc. was inspected by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration beginning November 25, 2008, under inspection number 311606354. OSHA recorded one “serious” violation with an initial and final penalty of $5,600.
The matter closed on February 24, 2009 through what OSHA classifies as an informal settlement. That means the company and the agency agreed on the citation and penalty without a full contest before the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission. The same firm had also appeared in a 1982 OSHRC decision concerning trench-sloping requirements under federal safety regulations.
John E. Kelly and Sons Electrical Construction Lawsuit
John E. Kelly and Sons Electrical Construction Inc., also known as Kelly Electric, sued Hartford Fire Insurance Company in the Northern District of Alabama under the Miller Act, which governs payment bonds on federal construction projects. The case, John E. Kelly & Sons Electrical Construction, Inc. v. Hartford Fire Insurance Company, docket 5:20-cv-00187, sought more than $2.1 million. It was terminated on April 9, 2021, with the court’s disposition listed only as “Other.” No public documents describe a formal settlement or a trial outcome.
In a separate regulatory matter, Kelly Electric notified the Maryland Office of the Attorney General in March 2023 that an unauthorized actor had accessed its network between April 2022 and February 2023 and copied files containing personal information for 364 Maryland residents. The company offered affected people two years of credit monitoring and identity restoration through Experian. This was a required breach notice, not a settlement.
Other Mentions Worth Ruling Out
A Canadian decision, Bow Development Ltd. v. William Kelly and Sons Plumbing Contractors Ltd., appears in an Alberta privacy commissioner order, but only as a cited precedent, with no settlement information. Beyond the three matters above, available government and court records do not show other regulatory enforcement actions, consumer fraud cases, or attorney general settlements against a business operating as “Kelly and Sons.” If you were told you’re entitled to money from a Kelly and Sons settlement, none of these three cases is a consumer recovery, so it’s worth confirming the source and the exact business name before acting.