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Lawsuit filed against Sago operator

THREE families involved in January’s Sago mine explosion, including survivor Randal McCloy, have filed a lawsuit against the operator and several companies.

Donna Schmidt
Lawsuit filed against Sago operator

According to an Associated Press report on Thursday, the documents were filed in Kanawha County Circuit Court in West Virginia by McCloy, Alva Bennett’s widow Judy and James Bennett’s widow Lily. While the suit is seeking punitive and compensatory damages, no details were released.

Named as defendants in the suit are the mine’s owner, International Coal Group (ICG) and subsidiary Wolf Run Mining, for which the group cited negligence and unsafe working conditions.

The Bennetts allege recklessness on the part of ICG for not controlling the flow of information in the hours after the explosion, which caused the families to falsely believe for three hours that all 12 miners had survived, the report stated. They are also requesting that the mine owner be required to execute recommendations put forth in a recent report released by a research team working under State Governor Joe Manchin.

McCloy’s complaint involves the injuries stemming from the accident, specifically his endurance of “great physical pain and suffering permanent scarring and disfigurement, and extreme mental anguish”, the news service said.

Also named in the lawsuit, filed Wednesday, are Pennsylvania-based Burrell Mining Products and West Virginia-based Raleigh Mine and Industrial Supply, which manufactured and supplied the operation with the foam seals used in the mine, as well as Maryland-based GMS Repair, which installed them.

Self-contained, self-rescue device (SCSR) producer CSE of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, is included as a defendant, blamed for defective units, according to several media reports.

Meanwhile, US district judge John Bates dismissed a claim filed the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) that would require the Mine Safety and Health Administration to conduct scheduled SCSR inspections and offer training to all underground miners.

The suit was filed in June, after a federal overhaul of mine safety regulations, and was thrown out Wednesday. The union alleges that those SCSRs that are given to miners often do not operate properly and that insufficient training is being given to miners.

“It could have led to security for coal miners that the safety equipment they carry with them underground every day was working properly,”AP quoted UMWA spokesman Phil Smith as saying.

However, Bates said the suit could not force an order because it did not meet the legal requirements to do so.

“The loss of lives, and the risks miners presently face, weigh heavily in public discourse and are taken seriously by this court,” he told the news service. “But the tragedy of those events, and the need for greater protection described by [the] plaintiff, cannot substitute for the requirements of the law.”

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