The Murphy Firm

articles
12/30/2008
The Daily Record

A Baltimore judge has approved the sweeping settlement a Constellation Energy Group subsidiary reached two months ago with Anne Arundel County residents who alleged their groundwater was tainted by coal ash — including an attorneys’ fees award of $10 million to be paid by the power company to the plaintiffs’ lawyers at The Murphy Firm and The Law Offices of Peter G. Angelos P.C. 

After hearing from plaintiffs’ attorney Richard V. Falcon and with no objections from Constellation’s lawyers or any of the plaintiffs gathered in the courtroom Tuesday morning, Judge Alfred Nance signed off on the proposed resolution to the year-old class action. 

“The court is struck by the breadth of expert witnesses that you’ve brought into the case,” Nance said in ruling from the bench, adding the speedy resolution of the case was “impressive.” “This court can’t come to any other conclusion than that which has been submitted today.” 

Including the attorneys’ fees, the settlement will cost Constellation more than $54 million, Falcon, of The Murphy Firm, announced in court. 

Falcon said the agreement came after “extensive, extensive informal discovery” and multiple mediation sessions with retired Court of Appeals Judge Howard S. Chasanow and Professor Eric Green. Falcon noted that, among other experts, the settlement had been endorsed by Jan Richard Schlichtmann, whose drinking water contamination suit against W.R. Grace and Beatrice Co. was the basis for the book and movie “A Civil Action.” 

Brett Ingerman, who has represented Constellation in the case, said the short hearing went “as expected and as hoped.” 

From 1995 until September 2007, the Baltimore-based energy giant deposited millions of tons of fly ash — a byproduct of burning coal — from two of its Anne Arundel County power plants into two Gambrills quarries. 

In their November 2007 lawsuit, the representative plaintiffs alleged Constellation Power Source Generation should have known the ash contained toxins and carcinogens such as arsenic, lead and mercury and that it would leach into the groundwater through the quarries’ porous floor. They also alleged Constellation had “actively engaged in a campaign of deception to mislead” the plaintiffs as to the health threat. 

Under the terms of the agreement, Constellation has agreed to connect 84 Gambrills households, which had previously relied on private wells, to public water over the course of the next two years. The company will also pay for their water bills for 10 years or until they move out, whichever comes first. 

Constellation will pay $9.5 million into a trust fund for those residents and $500,000 into a separate fund for a second class of plaintiffs — people who lived near the dump sites north of Route 3 between Waugh Chapel and Evergreen Roads but who did not use well water. 

William H. “Hassan” Murphy III estimated the class at 700 people, two-thirds of which are in the “Adjoining Properties” subclass. Murphy said the “Private Water” subclass members now will have 120 days to submit their claims to Gilbert A. Holmes, a University of Baltimore law professor and former dean who will serve as claims administrator, and that any checks will be in the mail within “seven, eight months max.” 

Lanham residents Doris Johnson, 81, and her niece, Eleanor Johnson, 74, attended the hearing to learn how the settlement might benefit them as owners of an undeveloped plot of land in the affected area that had been bequeathed to them. They worry about its diminished property value. 

“We’re trying to figure out how we figure in,” Eleanor Johnson said. 

Constellation has also agreed to spend at least $10 million on remediation of the former sand and gravel quarries and beautifying the acreage, which is now largely an open, grassy field. And, maybe most importantly, according to Murphy, the energy company will never dump ash in Gambrills again, at an estimated cost of $17.5 million to Constellation. 

“That injunction is actually worth a whole lot more than that,” said Murphy. 

As for the sizeable paycheck he and his co-counsel will receive, Murphy emphasized that the fees “do not and will not affect or impact the benefits to the class.” 

“We put in thousands and thousands and thousands of hours in the case, both firms,” he added.