ITC Explosion and Fire - 02/05/25
Q4 2024 Update
ITC Explosion and Fire - Q3 2024 Update
ITC Explosion and Fire - Q2 2024 Update
ITC Explosion and Fire - Q1 2024 Update
ITC Explosion and Fire - 11/11/23
Update 04/11/2023
Update 03/03/2023
Q4 2022 Update
As mentioned before, this environmental tragedy not only affected those who have to work in this plant, but those who live, work and/or own and operate businesses in the vicinity. In addition to personal injuries suffered from inhaling the toxic plume, ITC caused significant interruption in their lives, the use and enjoyment of their property, and interruption of their businesses and business practices.
We continue to work towards trial settings on this docket. Some “test cases” will be set for trial next year. We are still dealing with efforts by the ITC lawyers to get some cases dismissed on tenuous grounds, mostly associated with incomplete “fact sheets” turned in by the clients. Again, if our office has contacted you for supplemental information on these fact sheets, it is imperative that you respond timely and help meet those compliance issues. The Court has been pretty hard on clients she feels are not doing what is necessary in the process to provide enough information about their claims.
After an additional year of delays associated with ITC trying to blame a ball bearing company for the fires, we finally had our first round of out of court mediation discussions a few months ago to see if we could start settling cases. All the parties on both sides have agreed to utilize a mediator we have dealt with several times before to help negotiate settlement of cases without going to trial. While these first discussions were not very productive, we are cautiously optimistic that this will result in settling a number of the cases in the next few months, particularly those that are fully compliant with the information disclosures set out in the fact sheets we previously provided. The Court has been pushing for these negotiations now that most of the core discovery is complete and we expect to at least have some level of offers on many of the cases by the first of next year. Again, it will be important on every case to provide us with all of your medical information and any appraisals of any damage to any of your properties for any cleaning or remediation from all the smoke and fumes emanating from the plant. Our staff has been reaching out to many of you in recent months for this updated information.
The federal magistrate overseeing this docket of all cases appointed our firm as a member of the plaintiffs’ leadership or “steering committee” to assist the prosecution of the entire case and we believe we will have a substantive role in the trial preparations as well. In the interim, we continue to attend status conferences with the court regularly and have weekly conference calls with the other lawyers on the leadership committee to discuss next steps in the overall litigation strategy and case preparation. We anticipate either being back in productive settlement talks soon or preparing for test trials next spring.
We continue to work towards trial settings on this docket. Some “test cases” will be set for trial next year. We are still dealing with efforts by the ITC lawyers to get some cases dismissed on tenuous grounds, mostly associated with incomplete “fact sheets” turned in by the clients. Again, if our office has contacted you for supplemental information on these fact sheets, it is imperative that you respond timely and help meet those compliance issues. The Court has been pretty hard on clients she feels are not doing what is necessary in the process to provide enough information about their claims.
After an additional year of delays associated with ITC trying to blame a ball bearing company for the fires, we finally had our first round of out of court mediation discussions a few months ago to see if we could start settling cases. All the parties on both sides have agreed to utilize a mediator we have dealt with several times before to help negotiate settlement of cases without going to trial. While these first discussions were not very productive, we are cautiously optimistic that this will result in settling a number of the cases in the next few months, particularly those that are fully compliant with the information disclosures set out in the fact sheets we previously provided. The Court has been pushing for these negotiations now that most of the core discovery is complete and we expect to at least have some level of offers on many of the cases by the first of next year. Again, it will be important on every case to provide us with all of your medical information and any appraisals of any damage to any of your properties for any cleaning or remediation from all the smoke and fumes emanating from the plant. Our staff has been reaching out to many of you in recent months for this updated information.
The federal magistrate overseeing this docket of all cases appointed our firm as a member of the plaintiffs’ leadership or “steering committee” to assist the prosecution of the entire case and we believe we will have a substantive role in the trial preparations as well. In the interim, we continue to attend status conferences with the court regularly and have weekly conference calls with the other lawyers on the leadership committee to discuss next steps in the overall litigation strategy and case preparation. We anticipate either being back in productive settlement talks soon or preparing for test trials next spring.
Q3 2022 Update
As mentioned before, this environmental tragedy not only affected those who have to work in this plant, but those who live, work and/or own and operate businesses in the vicinity. In addition to personal injuries suffered from inhaling the toxic plume, ITC caused significant interruption in their lives, the use and enjoyment of their property, and interruption of their businesses and business practices.
We continue to work towards trial settings on this docket. In the meantime, ITC lawyers have been trying to get some cases dismissed on tenuous grounds, mostly associated with incomplete “fact sheets” turned in by the clients. Again, if our office has contacted you for supplemental information on these fact sheets, it is imperative that you respond timely and help meet those compliance issues. The Court may be hard on clients she feels are not doing what is necessary in the process to provide enough information about their claims.
At the same time this is going on, we are moving forward in some positive fashion with tentative dates set for mediation of cases starting this summer. We are cautiously optimistic that this will result in settling a number of the cases, particularly those that are fully compliant with the information disclosures set out in the fact sheets we previously provided. Again, if you have any questions about how to answer any of the remaining questions, our office is happy to meet with you in person or on the phone to walk you through those steps.
Due to the fact that all of the ITC cases were consolidated to one giant case for development with one Federal Judge and Magistrate, trials would start out with a few selected test cases if settlement talks don’t work out this summer. Again, as also mentioned before, the judge appointed our firm as a member of the plaintiffs’ leadership or “steering committee” to assist the prosecution of the entire case and we believe we will have a substantive role in the trial preparations as well. In the interim, we continue to attend status conferences with the court regularly and have weekly conference calls with the other lawyers on the leadership committee to discuss next steps in the overall litigation strategy and case preparation. We anticipate either being back in productive settlement talks this summer or preparing for test trials this fall.
We continue to work towards trial settings on this docket. In the meantime, ITC lawyers have been trying to get some cases dismissed on tenuous grounds, mostly associated with incomplete “fact sheets” turned in by the clients. Again, if our office has contacted you for supplemental information on these fact sheets, it is imperative that you respond timely and help meet those compliance issues. The Court may be hard on clients she feels are not doing what is necessary in the process to provide enough information about their claims.
At the same time this is going on, we are moving forward in some positive fashion with tentative dates set for mediation of cases starting this summer. We are cautiously optimistic that this will result in settling a number of the cases, particularly those that are fully compliant with the information disclosures set out in the fact sheets we previously provided. Again, if you have any questions about how to answer any of the remaining questions, our office is happy to meet with you in person or on the phone to walk you through those steps.
Due to the fact that all of the ITC cases were consolidated to one giant case for development with one Federal Judge and Magistrate, trials would start out with a few selected test cases if settlement talks don’t work out this summer. Again, as also mentioned before, the judge appointed our firm as a member of the plaintiffs’ leadership or “steering committee” to assist the prosecution of the entire case and we believe we will have a substantive role in the trial preparations as well. In the interim, we continue to attend status conferences with the court regularly and have weekly conference calls with the other lawyers on the leadership committee to discuss next steps in the overall litigation strategy and case preparation. We anticipate either being back in productive settlement talks this summer or preparing for test trials this fall.
Q1 2022 Update
Q4 2021 Update
As mentioned before, this environmental tragedy not only affected those who have to work in this plant, but those who live, work and/or own and operate businesses in the vicinity. In addition to personal injuries suffered from inhaling the toxic plume, ITC caused significant interruption in their lives, the use and enjoyment of their property, and interruption of their businesses and business practices.
Our firm is working with a small handful of other plaintiff firms the court has designated as the “leadership team” to speak for and organize all the of discovery into the ITC explosion on behalf of over 5,000 claimants. BCA directly represents over 600 of these claimants in the litigation. We had an agreement in place with ITC counsel to negotiate settlement of the claims in late 2021. However, as that deadline approached, ITC began to point the blame for the fire at allegedly defective bearings on one of their pumps. These bearings were manufactured by a company called NSK. Because ITC then postponed settlement discussions and tried to make a case against NSK, we were compelled to name NSK as an additional defendant as well. Long story short, we have spent the last 6 months focused more on them as a potential solid defendant but are now concluding that the case against them is weak at best, and we have returned our attention to ITC as the primary culpable party.
While we have retained metallurgy experts and others to look into this issue in more detail professionally, we are going back to the focus on ITC, and have requested they renew settlement discussions in the near future or prepare for trials on “sample cases”.
In the meantime, all Brent Coon & Associates clients' cases were timely filed with the Federal Court in charge of all the cases, and we sent our ITC clients the Court ordered set of questions to be answered. Some clients have been slow to return those forms in a fully completed manner, so our office and a company we have hired to help out have been reaching back out to those clients to complete that process. Again, we cannot fully evaluate a case for settlement values unless we have all the information requested on those forms. Accordingly, we have been reaching out to every single client with any missing information via phone, text, and email, to personally assist in completing the questionnaire and can help any of you who have yet to complete the forms. We have been working closely with our experts and co-counsel throughout 2021 on discovery and depositions of ITC employees. We have 2 more important ITC witnesses to take deposition statements of over the next month as we finish our preparations on the case and request trial settings for later in 2022 if we cannot reach a settlement.
Due to the fact that all of the ITC cases were consolidated to one giant case for development with one Federal Judge and Magistrate, trials would start out with a few selected test cases. As mentioned before, the judge appointed our firm as a member of the plaintiffs’ leadership or “steering committee” to assist the prosecution of the entire case and we believe we will have a substantive role in the trial preparations as well. In the interim, we continue to attend status conferences with the court regularly and have weekly conference calls with the other lawyers on the leadership committee to discuss next steps in the overall litigation strategy and case preparation. We anticipate either being back in productive settlement talks this summer or preparing for test trials this fall.
Our firm is working with a small handful of other plaintiff firms the court has designated as the “leadership team” to speak for and organize all the of discovery into the ITC explosion on behalf of over 5,000 claimants. BCA directly represents over 600 of these claimants in the litigation. We had an agreement in place with ITC counsel to negotiate settlement of the claims in late 2021. However, as that deadline approached, ITC began to point the blame for the fire at allegedly defective bearings on one of their pumps. These bearings were manufactured by a company called NSK. Because ITC then postponed settlement discussions and tried to make a case against NSK, we were compelled to name NSK as an additional defendant as well. Long story short, we have spent the last 6 months focused more on them as a potential solid defendant but are now concluding that the case against them is weak at best, and we have returned our attention to ITC as the primary culpable party.
While we have retained metallurgy experts and others to look into this issue in more detail professionally, we are going back to the focus on ITC, and have requested they renew settlement discussions in the near future or prepare for trials on “sample cases”.
In the meantime, all Brent Coon & Associates clients' cases were timely filed with the Federal Court in charge of all the cases, and we sent our ITC clients the Court ordered set of questions to be answered. Some clients have been slow to return those forms in a fully completed manner, so our office and a company we have hired to help out have been reaching back out to those clients to complete that process. Again, we cannot fully evaluate a case for settlement values unless we have all the information requested on those forms. Accordingly, we have been reaching out to every single client with any missing information via phone, text, and email, to personally assist in completing the questionnaire and can help any of you who have yet to complete the forms. We have been working closely with our experts and co-counsel throughout 2021 on discovery and depositions of ITC employees. We have 2 more important ITC witnesses to take deposition statements of over the next month as we finish our preparations on the case and request trial settings for later in 2022 if we cannot reach a settlement.
Due to the fact that all of the ITC cases were consolidated to one giant case for development with one Federal Judge and Magistrate, trials would start out with a few selected test cases. As mentioned before, the judge appointed our firm as a member of the plaintiffs’ leadership or “steering committee” to assist the prosecution of the entire case and we believe we will have a substantive role in the trial preparations as well. In the interim, we continue to attend status conferences with the court regularly and have weekly conference calls with the other lawyers on the leadership committee to discuss next steps in the overall litigation strategy and case preparation. We anticipate either being back in productive settlement talks this summer or preparing for test trials this fall.
Q4 2021 Update
This environmental tragedy not only affected those who have to work in this plant, but those who live, work and/or own and operate businesses in the vicinity. In addition to personal injuries suffered from inhaling the toxic plume, ITC caused significant interruption in their lives, the use and enjoyment of their property, and interruption of their businesses and business practices.
Every business was affected that relies and is dependent upon the Houston ship channel, ships, barges, pipelines, rail and trucks has a potential claim against ITC. All Brent Coon & Associates clients' cases have been filed. We sent our ITC clients a Court ordered set of questions to be answered as soon as possible last year. A few clients have yet to complete that process, which MUST be done soon. In addition, we have been reaching out to every client via phone, text, and email, to assist clients in completing the questionnaire and can help any of you who have yet to complete the forms. We have been working closely with our experts and co-counsel for the last year and depositions of ITC employees have already begun and will continue for several months.
All of the ITC cases have been consolidated in a single federal court. The judge appointed our firm as a member of the plaintiffs’ steering committee to assist the prosecution of the case. We attend status conferences with the court regularly. Recently, it was determined that it was necessary to bring in another defendant who manufactured the bearings on the motor that failed which caused the fire. We are hopeful that we can have meaningful settlement discussions with the defendants sometime this fall.
Every business was affected that relies and is dependent upon the Houston ship channel, ships, barges, pipelines, rail and trucks has a potential claim against ITC. All Brent Coon & Associates clients' cases have been filed. We sent our ITC clients a Court ordered set of questions to be answered as soon as possible last year. A few clients have yet to complete that process, which MUST be done soon. In addition, we have been reaching out to every client via phone, text, and email, to assist clients in completing the questionnaire and can help any of you who have yet to complete the forms. We have been working closely with our experts and co-counsel for the last year and depositions of ITC employees have already begun and will continue for several months.
All of the ITC cases have been consolidated in a single federal court. The judge appointed our firm as a member of the plaintiffs’ steering committee to assist the prosecution of the case. We attend status conferences with the court regularly. Recently, it was determined that it was necessary to bring in another defendant who manufactured the bearings on the motor that failed which caused the fire. We are hopeful that we can have meaningful settlement discussions with the defendants sometime this fall.