Kaiser lawsuit payouts begin

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Local residents lined up near West Seventh Street in Reserve on Monday for the first day of payouts from a major class action suit against Kaiser Aluminum & Chemical Corp. for a 1999 explosion at its Gramercy plant.

The payouts, which range from $250 to about $30,000, are for residents who claimed physical or property damage caused by the explosion, which injured 29 people and destroyed roughly a quarter of the St. James plant, said Daniel Becnel Jr., an attorney for some of the plaintiffs. Becnel's office was the disbursement site.

The award totaled about $35 million, and about 55 percent of that will be paid to residents of St. John the Baptist and St. James parishes, Becnel said.

These are the last payments connected to the suit, officials said.

"The case is over," said Randal Gaines, one of the 18 attorneys who made up the plaintiffs' committee charged with overseeing the class action suit. "It's been approved by the courts and the judgments have been signed."

Gaines said this class action suit, which was filed shortly after the explosion, was settled fairly quickly compared with others, which have taken up to 10 years.

In 2002, Kaiser was found by a 23rd District judge to be 60 percent responsible for the accident, while three other companies shared some blame, according to the decision.

The explosion happened after a power outage shut down some of the plant's machinery and caused a buildup of pressure, according to a report by the federal Department of Labor's Mining, Safety and Health Administration.

There were no long lines of people waiting for payments as there were when disbursements from the 1988 explosion at a Shell plant in Norco were handed out in 1995.

Daniel Clavier, a director with Bourgeois Bennett, the accounting firm that handled dispersing Kaiser checks and Shell checks, said his company set up two-hour time slots in which individuals could pick up their checks to avoid a large crush. Many of the residents picking up payments seemed to know each other. Most were reluctant to talk about their settlements, although the mood was somewhat jovial.

Chondrekia Combre said she was there to collect for the damage done to her family's Mount Airy home by the explosion. Combre, 19, said that she was happy the whole process was finally over.

Residents who filed the appropriate claim papers were notified about the payouts through letters issued Dec. 3. People within the specified claim area, which stretched from Reserve to North Vacherie, were told the amount of their award and given an appointment for when they could pick it up, Clavier said.

He estimated that about 18,400 residents would receive checks during the 10-day payout period, making it the largest disbursement in terms of people that his company has ever handled. Clavier said his company has handled many disbursements in the River Parishes and throughout the state over the years.

The amount of the payouts varied depending on how close residents were to the explosion, and how much damage they reported, Clavier said. To collect on their claims, residents had to present a government identification card and their claim letters, he said. Residents could also collect on claims made for deceased family members and minors, Clavier said.

Payouts will be given this week Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. and on Saturday from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m., Clavier said. There will also be disbursements Monday through Wednesday of next week.

Anyone who does not collect their check by Dec. 22 can contact the accounting firm to set up their payment by mail, Clavier said.