A judge ruled almost 60 civil claims against Exxon Mobil could be sent to federal court, which could be viewed as a setback for the Baltimore County residents suing the company after a massive gasoline spill earlier this year may have contaminated their drinking wells.
The Jacksonville residents? attorney said they are exploring their options after federal Judge Marvin Garbis ruled Friday that the private suits must be sent to a judicial panel in New York, which could forward them to a federal judge hearing cases related to the fuel additive methyl tertiary butyl ether, or MTBE. Phil Stein, an attorney with the Snyder Slutkin & Snyder firm, said the panel could decide to remand the cases back to state court, where he argued last week they belong.
“The judge has left the door open to making the very same argument to the multi-district panel,” Stein said. “They specifically said their decision was without prejudice to doing that.”
The ruling is at least a temporary victory for Exxon Mobil and its attorney, Andrew Gendron. He argued the cases should be heard by a Brooklyn-based federal judge dealing with product liability cases associated with MTBE, citing a clause in the Energy Policy Act of 2005.
Snyder Slutkin & Snyder and lawyers from the Law Offices of Peter Angelos filed separate, individual suits against Exxon Mobil and the station?s operator in circuit court on behalf of residents whose properties and wells were contaminated by the spill. More than 25,000 gallons of gasoline poured from an underground tank for more than a month before it was reported to state environmental officials. Both suits reference MTBE, but the Angelos suit “is strongly directed toward Exxon?s use of MTBE as an ingredient in gasoline,” Garbis wrote. Angelos attorney Mary Koch and Stein argued their cases aren?t about what goes into gasoline, but that it spilled.
