Jury selection begins in BP case

by Juan Lozano

The Associated Press

Jury selection began Thursday in the first civil trial resulting from the blast at a Texas City refinery owned by BP PLC that killed 15 people and injured more than 170 others.
More than 200 potential jurors gathered in a Galveston courtroom and answered questions from attorneys representing plaintiffs in five lawsuits that will be tried together.
Among the lawsuits is one filed by two boys whose father, Rene Cardona Sr., 26, killed himself six weeks after the March 2005 explosion.
“Our experts will show that his suicide was a direct result of the explosion,” said Robert Kwok, an attorney for the sons of Cardona, from Baytown.
Kwok said Cardona, a contract worker at the refinery from November 2003 until the day of the blast, was traumatized by the explosion because he knew people who were killed or injured in the accident.
Cardona’s sons, 11-year-old Rene Cardona Jr. and 6-year-old Xavier Rodriguez, briefly appeared in front of the jury before they had to go to school.
The other four plaintiffs –contract workers injured in the explosion—are  Nara and David Wilson from Santa Fe, Scott Kilbert from Bellville and Rolando Bocardo from Baytown.
“Inside the plant, it was hell on Earth,” Brent Coon, who represents the four other plaintiffs, told the jury pool. “These workers were running for their lives. Most of the people out there were working folks like you and I and were not emotionally prepared for that type of catastrophe.”
Originally, seven lawsuits were set to go to trial but two of them were settled before jury selection began Thursday.
BP spokesman Neil Chapman said the London-based oil company is working to settle all lawsuits filed as a result of the accident.
Currently, about 1,350 lawsuits have been settled. The blast has cost the company at least $2 billion in compensation payouts, repairs and lost profit.
The trial, if it proceeds, is expected to last up to two months.
The Texas City explosion occurred when part of the plant’s isomerization unit, which boosts the level of octane in gasoline, overfilled with highly flammable liquid hydrocarbons. A geyser-like release of flammable liquid and vapor ignited as the unit started up. Alarms and gauges that should have warned of the overfilling equipment failed to work at the plant about 40 miles southeast of Houston.
Coon told the jury pool that all the plaintiffs are claiming that BP did not adhere to various safety practices that would have prevented the blast.
“As horrible as this was, the worse thing was that this was avoidable,” Coon said.
The U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board, one of several agencies that investigated the accident, found that BP fostered bad management at the plant. The CSB also said cost-cutting moves by BP were factors in the explosion.
An internal report by BP released in May said there were management failures from the isomerization unit all the way up to the refining and marketing segment of the company.
Coon asked potential jurors Thursday if any of them work for BP. Several said they did, including two men who responded they work in the safety department at the Texas City refinery. Their responses elicited laughter from people in the courtroom.
“No disrespect for you. I’m sure you do a fine job,” Coon told one of these two men.
Jury selection was expected to take at least two days.