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Ex-mobile home residents settle MTBE lawsuits
| Friday, Sep 8 2006 9:50 PM
Last Updated: Friday, Sep 8 2006 9:54 PM
With no lawyer, evidence or experts, former trailer park residents represented themselves in court Friday, settling the last of more than 200 lawsuits against former owners of an oil refinery they say poisoned their water.
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Shell Oil, which ran the Rosedale Highway refinery with Texaco, paid to be done with the cases, a company representative said. It had tried once before, but 20 plaintiffs held out until now.
"I feel if we don't (settle), the case is going to get thrown out of court," said Anna Newsome, who lived at the trailer park intermittently and led her former neighbors in refusing the previous settlement.
She was addressing Kern County Superior Court Judge Gary T. Friedman, who approved two $5,000 settlements on behalf of her daughters. Newsome settled for $10,000.
If she'd signed before, she would have gotten a check for $572.10. Her daughterswould have netted $762.80 each.
More would have gone to their attorneys at Arias, Ozzello & Gignac, a Los Angeles law firm. The attorneys encouraged all 200 clients to settle for a total of $2.8 million.
There wasn't enough evidence to prove residents at the Gaslite Mobile Home Park were sickened by the gasoline additive MTBE, Mike Arias, the plaintiffs' lead attorney, has said. Residents say they still suffer from exposure, but none of it could be proven.
As of Friday, the holdout plaintiffs had either settled their cases or their suits were dismissed for not showing up to court.
"We're just pleased to come to a mutually satisfying conclusion," said Stan Mays, a spokesman for Shell.
Newsome was one of the few plaintiffs to address the judge Friday. She and her two daughters wore T-shirts. In every way, their manner contrasted the natty suits of the opposition.
Newsome told the judge she couldn't put her daughters' settlement checks in the bank lest they lose disability benefits. They'll spend the money on clothes and a trip to Disneyland, she said.
The judge seemed pleased.
"I think you have done a very good job representing your children," Friedman said.
To the children, he said, "Have a good time at Disneyland and you have a great mom."
The Gaslite Mobile Home Park no longer exists. The refinery, once known as Bakersfield Equilon Refinery, is now owned by Flying J Inc.
Refineries add MTBE, a suspected carcinogen, to gasoline so it will burn cleaner. The refinery leaked MTBE-laden gasoline several times in the 1990s, but the largest incident was a 2,300-gallon spill of pure MTBE in 1996. The plaintiffs filed their suits in 2001.