WILLIAMSON – Mingo County Circuit Judge Michael Thornsbury and his staff worked until midnight Thursday to make sure all 751 plaintiffs in a settlement conference for a pollution suit against Massey Energy could see him if they wanted.

Thornsbury told the plaintiffs — current and former residents of Rawl, Sprigg, Merrimac and Lick Creek — they had had time to think about the offers that Massey was making to them, and they had to let him know their decisions within a few minutes, so as to see everyone in a timely manner.

“They have been working on their cases for years,” Thornsbury said. “They knew what they wanted to do.We resolved as many issues as we could. I consider the day a success.”

The judge told the Daily News he spent an average of five minutes with each plaintiff.

“Every person was seen,” he said. “We settled 185 of the cases.”

Thornsbury also combined the voluminous lawsuits  into a class-action case against Rawl Sales & Processing, which is accused of pumping 1.4 billion gallons of coal slurry into former underground mines between 1978 and 1987 and destroying local water supplies.

Kevin Thompson, attorney for the plaintiffs, said the judge’s approach “revealed itself to be the only way it could have been done.”

“Judge Thornsbury sat there in those rooms and went back and forth for hours until every single person who wanted to see him saw him,” Thompson said. “This process has cut weeks, if not months, off the length of this trial.”

Thornsbury noted how hard his staff worked.

“So many people spent a lot of hours,” he said. “Everyone worked hard, we had no lunch, no dinner. We did as we do with each case, we mediated and tried to resolve as many issues as possible.”

He did not say how many cases were resolved or what the conditions were.

A pre-trial hearing is set for Monday, May 4, in Williamson, while a trial is set to begin May 12.