Buffalo, N.Y. (WBEN) - A landmark guilty verdict has resulted from the massive fire at the Bethlehem Steel complex that sent plumes of black smoke and ash over the nearby Bethlehem Park neighborhood in Lackawanna in November of 2016.
An Erie County jury returned the unanimous guilty verdict on Tuesday against the owner, Great Lakes Industrial Development, LLC, and the tenant, Industrial Materials Recycling LLC.
"It is such a relief," said plaintiffs attorney Jeanne Vinal, speaking with WBEN on Wednesday.
"It's been so long, and there have been constant denials of responsibility and blaming everyone else. And the jury found not only were they guilty of negligence, but also guilty of gross negligence, which shows reckless disregard."
There were 80 named plaintiffs in the suit, along with the potential for 3,000 "John and Jane Doe" plaintiffs.
The case was bifurcated, meaning it was split into two phases. The first was a determination of who was at fault. The next phase will determine punitive damages.
"If people suffered property damage, which there was a lot of, or if they suffered personal injury, and they are not among the original 80, we can ask the court to add them to the action," Vinal explained.
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It's not a stretch to call it a David vs. Goliath case. The two firms working against Vinal are two of the biggest firms in Upstate New York against Vinal's firm, which has just three attorneys.
"They put us through our paces, for sure," Vinal added. "But in the end, our experts were all local people whose lives are dedicated to making things safer for people. Their two experts were hired guns who have only done forensic analysis. Our experts came through big time."
The Bethlehem Steel structure had no sprinklers, heat detectors or alarms. Over a million pounds of plastic, a combustible, was being stored on site.
"All of that plastic went up in smoke and was dumped over Blasdell and Bethlehem Park," which Vinal described as "a nice neighborhood of working people and retirees immediately adjacent to the fire scene."
Vinal recounted a couple of stories from the plaintiffs.
"This one woman, who always had a big vegetable garden, said the year after the fire, that her vegetables came up all different colors. Other houses that were totally closed, including windows and doors, had soot inside their kitchen cabinets," she said.
The punitive phase of the case is set to begin soon with a new jury. Each plaintiff can bring a claim for punitive damages. So instead of one punitive damage award, there can be multiple punitive damage awards.
