More than four years after an aging pipeline ruptured and spilled thousands of gallons of oil into a Mayflower neighborhood, the legal fallout lingers.
At one point, at least 17 lawsuits filed against pipeline owner Exxon Mobil Corp. or its subsidiaries were pending in state and federal courts. Six were in U.S. District Court in Little Rock; the remainder were in Faulkner County Circuit Court in Conway.
Today, five lawsuits are pending in circuit court. And the only case still pending in a federal court was filed, not against the oil giant, but by it.
The Pegasus pipeline, built in 1947-48, cracked open between two houses in Mayflower's Northwoods neighborhood on Good Friday, March 29, 2013. The thick, black crude spilled through streets, yards and a drainage ditch before being contained in a cove of Lake Conway. Authorities said the oil never reached the main part of the popular fishing lake.
Since then, the neighborhood and the lives of many of those affected have changed immensely.
At least two people who were among those joining lawsuits against Exxon Mobil have died. Many residents have moved. And the lead plaintiffs in one case have divorced. Their divorce decree addresses the issue of any settlement awards if the lawsuit succeeds.
"The court reserves the right to divide any settlement proceeds or awards arising from that action upon proper Motion of either party if the parties are in disagreement as to the disbursement of such proceeds," the decree says. "That, in absence of evidence otherwise, the Court will consider these proceeds as being for future medical expenses and, therefore, not divisible." The woman has an unspecified disability, according to court filings.
After the spill, 22 homes in the 63-home subdivision were evacuated for months; some residents never moved back. Exxon Mobil eventually demolished three of the houses and bought many more.
Exxon spokesman Todd Spitler said Wednesday that the company has sold 31 of the homes.
A total of 33 homes have been sold, 31 by Exxon Mobil and two by a third party, Spitler said in an email. The company still owns eight homes. Those include six of the houses evacuated after the spill, he said.
"Realtors continue to hold open house events to draw real estate agents and potential buyers for the" properties Exxon Mobil owns, he said.
Two of the circuit court cases, filed on behalf of dozens of Mayflower-area households and businesses, are scheduled for a joint trial in January. The cases will be tried together, said Paul Byrd, an attorney in one of them. But damages could vary among the plaintiffs if Exxon Mobil is found liable.
"Each plaintiff has their own case," Byrd said. "Each person has their own day in court."
Two others lawsuits, each filed by a single person in March 2016 shortly before the statute of limitations kicked in, still await a trial date. Exxon Mobil said a fifth case is in circuit court but it did not have details. The circuit clerk's office could not locate the case without further information.
Notably, the only spill-related lawsuit filed by Exxon Mobil still awaits a ruling in the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans, which handles cases from the oil giant's Houston headquarters. That appeal challenges a federal regulatory agency's findings and penalties against the company as a result of the oil spill.
A three-judge panel heard oral arguments in the case in November 2016 but did not say when it would rule.
In the end, only one case gained class-action status in a federal court, and it didn't last. On March 19, 2015, U.S. District Judge Brian Miller reversed his decision granting that status to Mayflower property owners Charlene and Arnez Harper and dismissed the case. In May, the plaintiffs lost an appeal to a three-judge panel of the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis.
No further appeals are planned, Thomas Thrash, an attorney for the plaintiffs, said last week. Had the class-action lawsuit prevailed, thousands of property owners in four states along the Pegasus pipeline could have benefited from a judgment.
Early last month, an Arkansas-based law firm announced that it had reached "a favorable settlement" on behalf of dozens of households in Mayflower. The confidential settlement was actually reached in November 2015, and Circuit Judge Charles Clawson Jr. ordered the case dismissed the next month.
"The parties were bound by a strict nondisclosure agreement until this spring," said Rachel Otis, a spokesman for Hare Wynn Newell and Newton law firm in Little Rock and Fayetteville.
Attorney Shawn Daniels, who is with the Hare Wynn firm, said the settlement was on behalf of 64 families represented by that law firm as well as many others represented by attorneys at two other law firms.
Little Rock attorney Sam Ledbetter said he handled the case for an additional 41 households. Conway attorney Tom Mickel, who represented the remaining plaintiffs, could not be reached for comment by phone.
Daniels said the settlements will vary depending on how each plaintiff was affected by the spill.
Perhaps the highest-profile case ended in August 2015 when U.S. District Judge Kristine Baker signed off on a $5.07 million settlement reached between Exxon Mobil and the state and federal governments.
The settlement was in the form of a consent decree and included new safety measures, most notably that Exxon Mobil must treat the roughly 650-mile northern section of the pipeline as susceptible to seam failure. That's what caused the Mayflower accident.
Throughout all of the legal fallout, one thing has remained the same: The pipeline has remained shut down since shortly after the spill with only a 211-mile section of it in Texas reopened.
A Section on 07/02/2017