Families file class action suit over 1968 No. 9 explosion
The Times West Virginian
Posted: Tuesday, November 11, 2014 6:00 am
By Misty Poe
Families file class action suit over 1968 No. 9 explosion
FAIRMONT — A class action lawsuit was filed late last week in Marion County, claiming that a former (and now deceased) employee of Consolidated Coal and the company itself covered up the actual cause of the 1968 Farmington No. 9 mine explosion.
In a suit filed Thursday, plaintiffs Michael D. Michael and Judith A. Kuhn, administrators of the estates of two miners killed in the explosion, on behalf of themselves and the estates of 76 other miners, filed suit against Consol and the estate of Alex Kovarbasich, the chief electrician at the No. 9 mine at the time of the explosion.
The plaintiffs are asking for $110,000 per member of the class action suit, interest and punitive damages “for the intentional, grossly negligent and reprehensible actions on the part of the defendants.”
The suit is partially based on a 1970 memo, written by federal mine inspector Larry Layne, which states that a ventilation fan’s safety alarm was disabled prior to the explosion so “when the fan would stop or slow down, there was no way of anyone knowing about it because the alarm signal was bypassed,” the memo reads....
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