St. Bernard Parish agrees to settle class action suit - Litigation stemmed from '98 refinery tainted-water claim

www.nola.com Saturday February 01, 2003 By Karen Turni Bazile St. Bernard/Plaquemines bureau

St. Bernard Parish and its insurer will pay $1.15 million to settle a class action lawsuit stemming from a January 1998 refinery discharge that allegedly tainted the parish's drinking water, attorneys said Friday.

The settlement, which still must be approved by the Parish Council at Tuesday's meeting, will save the parish the legal expenses that were expected to mushroom had the parish continued fighting the lawsuit.

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The pending settlement leaves Chalmette Refining LLC as the only defendant in the suit, which is set for trial June 9.

The parish's share of the settlement will be $180,000, said J. Wayne Mumphrey, the attorney representing the parish in the matter. It already has paid about $200,000 in legal fees in the four years that Mumphrey and a team of up to five attorneys represented the parish in the matter, which included a three-week trial in 2000 over whether the case should be tried as a class action lawsuit.

The parish's insurer, Genesis Insurance Co., will cover the rest of the settlement, $970,000. The parish, as part of its insurance policy, must pay the first $250,000 of expenses with the insurance company covering the next $1 million. Anything over that amount would have had to come from the parish's general fund.

"I'm just pleased beyond belief to get us out of this mess," Mumphrey said. "The parish is not admitting any negligence or wrongdoing. It's just a compromise that is based on good business sense. Our legal fees and defense costs from now to this trial would have been more than $180,000."

Sidney Torres, one of the plaintiffs attorneys, called the settlement "fair and equitable" to both parties, adding that plaintiffs attorneys agreed to the settlement because the parish had limited liability and limited insurance coverage.

Plaintiffs attorneys have said the refinery should pay to move the parish's water intake pipe, which is just downriver from the refinery.

At this point, it's unclear how much money the plaintiffs' attorneys would receive from the settlement and how much their clients would receive. The money will be placed in an interest-bearing account until the trial with the refinery is complete.

There are 9,000 plaintiffs in the suit, a number that could still grow. Should the plaintiffs prevail, state District Judge Walter Kollin, who is hearing the case, will ultimately decide the rate attorneys receive.

Kollin made a ruling in April 2000 certifying the suit as class action. The plaintiffs claim they became ill after chemicals discharged by the refinery during a heavy rainstorm seeped into the parish water plant.

Kollin said the class action certification doesn't assign blame to the parish or the refinery, which is a joint venture co-owned by Exxon Mobil Corp. and Petroleos de Venezuela, the state-owned oil company of Venezuela; that will be decided at trial. . . . . . . . Karen Turni Bazile can be reached at kturni@timespicayune.com or (504) 826-3835.