Lackawanna, N.Y. (WBEN) - More than six years after a major fire at the former Bethlehem Steel site in Lackawanna, a lawsuit filed against the owners of the property is set to go to trial in June.
This comes after a decision was made on Friday by State Supreme Court Justice Timothy Walker to deny the motions of the defendant for summary judgment arising out of the Bethlehem Steel fire on Nov. 9, 2016.
"When we got the decision, we were gratified and we knew the judge did read all the papers," said local attorney Jeanne Vinal during a press conference outside the Bethlehem Steel site in Lackawanna on Monday. "The judge issued a 20-page decision that included numerous findings of fact, and said, 'There was no evidence whatsoever to support the claim that they had notified the City of Lackawanna, or that Lackawanna knew this was going to be a plastics recycling facility, and that they had a chance to say what kind of safety equipment would be acceptable before this fire.' So that it wasn't Lackawanna's fault, it wasn't anyone else's fault but their fault for choosing to put their own financials over the safety of their neighbors."
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It was back in January of 2021 when more than 30 people who lived near the site filed the lawsuit against Great Lakes Industrial Development for damages related to the massive fire that roared for four days in Lackawanna. That number has since increased to 75 people, with more than 3,500 "John and Jane Does" potentially factoring into this case.
"For the people that are named, they suffered personal injury, wrongful death for their people that they're related to, and property damage. For the others, those also included injuries to responders," Vinal explained. "We intend to add those John and Jane Does, replaced them, with the court's permission, to people who have been injured."
The lawsuit claims gross negligence on the behalf of nearby residents, who say they have suffered many lung-related health issues in the years since the fire. The suit claims Great Lakes Industrial Development did not have a fire suppression system, despite the company saying its property met all code requirements.
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Just a few years before the fire took place, Dennis and David Franjoine - owners of Great lakes Industrial Development - with a third minor investor, purchased a failing company that recycled plastics, grinding them into pellets or, if too soft, then into flakes for resale. After several years of losses in the plastics business, and with the Bethlehem Steel site still largely vacant, the owners of the Bethlehem Steel site decided to move the plastics business there.
The plastic pellets were stored in Gaylord boxes (2-3 ply corrugated cardboard crates), stacked 2-3 high, with wooden pallets between them, until there was a buyer to buy and a truckload full. It is estimated there were over a hundred tons of these plastic pellets stored on site at the time of the fire.
According to Vinal's office, there was no sprinkler system, no smoke detectors, no heat detectors, no alarms, and no automatic notice to the fire department with the building that had burnt in the November 2016 fire. There were operating fire hydrants that had been checked by the City of Lackawanna over a year prior to the plastics company being moved in and found to be working, but the Franjiones set up no running water for the employees.
In the year they were there before the fire, there were multiple large, high temperature bulbs that had been used frequently in plants such as steel plants, that had exploded, raining down shards of hot glass.
On the morning of the fire, the on-site manager, whose experience was in the metal, not plastics industry, had heard glass breaking at around 6:55 a.m. EST. He walked the plant and could not find the broken glass, but looked only on the ground. The Gaylords were stacked over his head, and there were no other workers there except in a closed trailer when they arrived at around 7 a.m. EST for a safety meeting, ironically, about the use of a fire extinguisher.
It was shortly after the meeting had started when the supervisor looked out the little trailer window and saw the flames several feet above a stack of Gaylords. At 7:09 a.m. EST, the manager ran out with his hand-held fire extinguisher. The fire quickly became out of control and efforts to extinguish the blaze with fire extinguishers ended. Once everyone exited the building, the 9-1-1 call was put out to authorities.
Court records show that not having smoke and heat detectors, and an automatic alarm resulted in a 20-minute delay of notice to the fire department.
"What caused this fire, which fires happen, to become a disaster was that failure to do those basic things, and just to take those reasonable precautions - just as putting in a heat detector to notify the police. That alone, one of our experts said, would have gotten the firemen there 20 minutes earlier, and they would have contained it, let alone, to put in a sprinkler system to put out that fire," Vinal said.
Within hours of the fire, the owners of the building and the plastics company called the insurance company and their public relations person, and came up with the story reported widely that sprinklers were not necessary, as this was grandfathered in and the City of Lackawanna had OK’ed it. Plaintiff’s counsel states this claim was made repeatedly by defense, even to the court throughout the litigation.
However, motion papers filed showed when the Lackawanna fire inspector was at the site in August 2014, the building was vacant. When Lackawanna asked who was moving in, the representative said they were not sure, but might be storage and recycling.
The fire inspector stated specifically that depending on the type of business, they might need to put in a sprinkler, and then specifically check the fire hydrants while the building owner representative was there. Despite this, repeatedly the defense told the court and testified there was no water on site.
Further, the building owner and tenant never informed the City of Lackawanna that a plastics recycling company was moving in.
The fire inspector from Lackawanna and experts who submitted affidavits on behalf of the plaintiff gave the opinion that a sprinkler system was required under the, then, current regulations, as there was a change of use from a noncombustible material – steel – to a combustible material - plastic.
The next step from here is going through the trial in June, which will focus on liability. After the trial, while Vinal and her legal team might be just limited to the 75 people, they might be able to make a motion to add the other people that have already contacted us, in addition to others that may be eligible.
"We've been asked by some fire [departments] to add the firemen. We haven't done that yet, but we will try to add those people to get justice for them as well," Vinal said.
"The punishment is they'll have to pay for the damages. ... The time for bringing criminal charges, I think, might have passed, if there could be criminal charges. But if it doesn't, we will try to seek damages beyond insurance to related corporations, if we can. That's one thing we might try to do.
"The courts are the way that private individuals get to redress their grievances. Sometimes in the political setting, here they have a PR firm actively telling, meeting with key government officials to placate them, and to say we're going to take care of everything. The courts are the way where you get into the nitty gritty, you do all the discovery, and then hopefully there's justice at the end."
Among those listed in the complaint were the original firefighters battling the blaze. Vinal says they've been told from the fire departments that at Roswell Park, one of the screening questions for health screening going forward for firefighters they're treating is, "Did you respond to the Bethlehem Steel fire?"
"That's something that wouldn't have been known immediately that when you're testing it, it's there," Vinal said. "I do think people should know they can get checked or have [tests] on that. Those fire people, they were right up in it. If you read one of the reports, the fire reports, a whole bunch of the - I forgot if it's ventilators or masks that weren't working properly, so people were in there for long periods of time. Even one of the reporters had told me previously that his lungs felt burnt. He was only here for a short time for days after, and he was right up at this location, basically."
As this lawsuit continues and heads to trial, Vinal is hopeful this case will start to garner more attention for other similar instances nationally with people suffering the consequences of a large fire or incident that has had medical repercussions.
"We're lucky in Buffalo that we do have good experts in this kind of field, as far as in the pulmonology field and in the chemical exposure field," she said. "I think in a lot of towns, they wouldn't have that kind of resources that we have here in Western New York. I think in that sense, it could be used that it's an expensive case, any case is expensive that has this kind of thing, so it's hard to find people to be willing to prosecute a case like this because of the expense. But, luckily, in some of these areas, like when we see a rural town, do they have the experts, do we have to go elsewhere? We're lucky in Buffalo that we have our experts here to do it, so I think in that case, it's good. So maybe it could become a model for communities of our size and larger."
More from Monday's press conference is available in the player below: