More than 50 Jacksonville, Md., families are each filing lawsuits against Exxon Mobil Corp., seeking more than $1 billion combined in damages after a massive gas leak earlier this year went undetected for more than a month, a representative announced Tuesday.
The suits allege “intentional, egregious and repeated misconduct” in connection with the 25,000-gallon leak at an Exxon-owned station in February, according to a statement released by Laura Crovo, a spokeswoman for the law firm Snyder Slutkin & Snyder. The Baltimore-based firm is representing families that live closest to the station, the statement says, and the suits will also name station operator Storto Enterprises.
Crovo said attorneys and families will not be available for comment until after a news conference scheduled for Thursday.Exxon spokeswoman Betsy Eaton declined to comment until she had a chance to review the lawsuits.
The suits are the latest in a series of legal actions taken against the company and the station operator. In April, the state filed a 15-count, multimillion-dollar lawsuit against them, alleging that as much as 700 gallons of gas poured from a hole in an underground tank for 37 days before it was reported. Maryland Department of the Environment Secretary Kendl Philbrick said the station lacked working leak-detection devices and employees ignored obvious inventory discrepancies.
In March, residents of Hampshire Road ? where traces of a fuel additive have appeared in residential wells ? filed a $535 million class-action lawsuit against the company and Storto. Mary Koch, an attorney with the law firm of Peter Angelos representing the residents, was not available for comment.
Eaton met with members of the Greater Jacksonville Association on Tuesday to discuss preliminary plans to fence and landscape properties the company has purchased during remediation, including the station on the corner of Jarrettsville Pike and Paper Mill Road. “We?ll discuss if that?s appropriate,” she said. “The properties are really in the heart of the business community.”
