(Staff photo/JULIA R. GOAD)
Bobby and Teresa Fields traveled with their son Phoenix from Portland, Oregon, to be present for the settlement conference. Fields says his family cannot afford the travel and time missed from work to continue with his lawsuit, he is ready to settle.
The overflow was sent to the Williamson Field House after Judge Michael Thornsbury ordered all the parties involved be present in court to attempt to settle claims that a Massey Energy subsidary contaminated the water supply in the community of Rawl.
Lawyers for 60 insurances companies, attorneys representing Massey Energy’s Rawl Sales subsidiary and 732 plaintiffs had to present themselves to court at 8:30 Monday morning. According to attorney Kevin Thompson, who is representing the plaintiffs, Judge Thorns-bury gave the lawyer 69 hours to have all his clients in the courtroom.
Former Mingo citizens came from all across the country on short notice, from Washington state to Florida.
The judge divided the palintiffs into groups of 100 and saw them in alphebetical order. While some waited at the courthouse, several hundred plaintiffs, along with their families, were sent to the field house to wait.
According to Thomp-son’s office, no plaintiffs had accepted Massey offers as of the time representatives for the attorney spoke to the Daily News. The attorney’s representatives, who had a table set up in the field house to answer questions from plaintiffs, said that Massey’s records show the company injected 1.4 gallons of coal slurry into worked out coal mines between 1978 and 1984. Lawyers for the plaintiffs say the company used the mines to contain the slurry in an attempt to save the $55,000 that it would have cost to build a surface impoundment.
“My children and I have had serious health issues,” Madonna McCoy of Merrimac said as she waited at the fieldhouse. McCoy has two wells and a spring in Merrimac. “They have destroyed our land. We can’t even eat the food we grow in our gardens.”
“Even the toxicologists can’t tell us what will happen to us,” McCoy said.
She said her 16-year-old daughter has been told she will never be able to have children due to the health problems caused by the contamination. She has been offered $25,000, her daughter was offered $20,000. They refused the offers.
Kenneth Stroud used to be a maintenance supervisor at an apartment complex. Now disabled, he says he and his children have suffered physical and mental problems c ve a nervous disorder and depression,” Stroud said. “My children have learning disabilities and dental problems.”
He also planned to reject a settlement offer. Since legal proceedings began in 2004, the offers that have been presented since Monday are the first ones Massey has made. Most of the plaintiffs who spoke to the Daily News planned to reject the offers.
However, some people said they cannot afford to fight the coal company much longer. Bobby Fields brought his wife Teresa and their infant son Phoenix from Portland Oregon. He lived in the Rawl area for 25 years, he said, including all his childhood. His mother died of unknown causes in 1985. He said medical tests revealed levels of lead, arsenic and mercury in his system. However, Fields, who makes minimum wage, says he is considering giving up the fight.
“I can’t affored this,” he said. “We have to miss work, but plane tickets, pay for a room,” he said. “It’s too much. I figure, I ain’t dead yet.”
The plaintiffs who reject the offers will go to trial in Mingo Circuit Court in Williamson on May 12. However, Judge Thorns-bury warned plaintiffs that the results of a trail may not bring the compensation they are hoping for.
“Very few [people] have fared better at trial than they did at the settlement conference.”
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