HARRISBURG, Pa. – Some West Virginia attorneys are declaring a key victory in a Pennsylvania case regarding properties contaminated with arsenic and lead decades after a U.S. Steel facility was shuttered.
In an October 1 opinion, the Pennsylvania Superior Court agreed with a lower court that had denied motions for summary judgment by U.S. Steel in a class action lawsuit filed in 2017. The case had been on an interlocutory appeal since early this year.
The trial court judge in the Court of Common Pleas of Washington County previously granted the motion for class certification. After Tuesday’s ruling, the case now goes back to the trial court for further action. Washington County is just across the state border from Monongalia County and Morgantown in West Virginia.
diTrapano
“Based on our review of the record, we discern no error of law or abuse of discretion by the trial court,” Prothonotary Benjamin D. Kohler wrote in the 26-page ruling. A prothonotary is a chief clerk of a court.
Attorneys L. Dante diTrapano and Alex McLaughlin from Calwell Luce diTrapano in Charleston as well as Michael Jacks of Morgantown and Rod Jackson of Charleston are among the attorneys who represent the owners and residents of about 28,000 properties affected by the contamination. Van Bunch of Bonnett Fairbourn Friedman & Balint of Phoenix, who also is licensed to practice law in West Virginia, also is representing the plaintiffs as well as Pennsylvania attorney Patrick Loughren of Loughren Loughren & Loughren in Pittsburgh.
“Speaking on behalf of the class and the attorneys involve in the case, we’re thrilled to be back in court after a lengthy appeal,” diTrapano told The West Virginia Record.
The plaintiffs say their homes and yards are contaminated with arsenic and lead. They argue that chronic exposure to the elevated levels of those metals heightens their risk of certain health problems.
The defendant U.S. Steel Corporation Inc. doing business as USX Corporation had argued the judge in Washington County’s Common Pleas Court had erred in interpreting Pennsylvania’s Hazardous Sites Cleanup Act and in recognizing a cause of action for trespass based on the airborne intrusion of invisible particulates.
The plaintiffs all own property within five miles of the former Donora Zinc Works, which they say still presents a threat decades after the facility closed in 1957 after 42 years of production. At the site, U.S. Steel refined zinc ore into zinc using furnaces to heat the ore to an extremely high temperature for use in steel manufacturing. The refining process released lead, zinc, cadmium and arsenic among other by-products into the atmosphere through smokestacks.
Today, elevated levels of cadmium still can be found in soil and household samples in the vicinity of the plant. The plaintiffs want U.S. Steel to pay to remediate the contaminated soil and homes as well as for medical monitoring of those who might be exposed.
The Donora Zinc Works was the largest of its kind when it was opened in 1915 by U.S. Steel subsidiary American Steel and Wire Co.
In 1948, a fog caused by weather and emission issues caused a thick, yellowish, acrid smog to hang over the town of about 14,000 people located on the Monongahela River for five days. More than two dozen people died, and thousands had respiratory problems. The New York Times called it “one of the worst air pollution disasters in the nation’s history.”
Donora also is known as “The Home of Champions” because of a large number of famous athletes who have lived there, including baseball legends Stan Musial, Ken Griffey Sr. and Ken Griffey Jr.
Superior Court of Pennsylvania case number 2024 PA Super 227 (Court of Common Pleas of Washington County Civil Division case number C-63-CV-2017-3355)
