Attorney Mike Easley of the Easley Houseal Law Firm Helps Make Arkansas Workplaces Safer and Obtained Multimillion-dollar Compensation for a Young Father Burned over 40% of His Body.

Mike Easley of Easley Houseal brought a suit that won a multi-million-dollar settlement for a man critically burned in a fire at a chemical plant in East Arkansas.  The case brought attention to the need for better oversight of industrial safety.

The victim was a 25 year-old father of three young children when he was burned over 40 percent of his body in a workplace accident. The burns led to the amputation of his hands and ears in January of 2004.

The victim was working at a plant in eastern Arkansas when a leaking valve led to a fiery explosion. The young man contacted Mike Easley to help him gain compensation for his injuries, so that he could obtain ongoing medical and rehabilitative care and support his young family.

“I’ve never met a person with a more positive outlook in the face of such catastrophic injury” noted Easley.  “He was determined not to be seen as a victim but as a survivor.”

Easley associated local attorneys Don McKenna, Paul Byrd and Scott Powell. The team of lawyers led by Easley established that providers of dangerous and non-detectable fuels and chemicals have a duty to make sure the customers to whom they deliver the fuel have the proper safety equipment and use proper safety procedures. The case also highlighted the need for communities to know what oversight is being exercised over industries that supply and handle dangerous chemicals.

After the explosion and fire, the plant was fined more than $20,000 by OSHA for several violations of safety regulations at the plant, including the operation of power equipment near an open source of fuel. A forklift and an electric heater are two possible sources cited for the spark that touched off the fire that leveled the plant and injured the victim.

Easley said the case highlights the need for public awareness of the potential danger and environmental hazards that industrial operations in their communities may be causing. In this case, he noted, the industrial fuel supplier drove within a few feet of a day care center, and delivered the fuel to a company that did not have the proper safety equipment or training to handle it. “This put the entire community at risk when the plant exploded and caught fire,” Easley said.

Easley and the attorneys he associated for the case introduced evidence at a settlement conference proving the plant’s lack of standard industry safety equipment to prevent such an accident. Testimony also indicated no regulatory body has appropriate oversight authority over the fuel industry to prevent future such accidents.

“The realization that this kind of situation exists somewhere else at this very moment is a cold, chilling reality,” Easley said. “We hope that litigation such as this will raise awareness and be the catalyst that drives the chemical and fuel industry to make needed changes. They don’t need to wait for the next catastrophic event where someone’s life or some community is once again shattered.”

E-Mail: mike.easley@ehtriallawyers.com