Shortly after the deadly blast that killed 29 coal miners at Massey Energy Co. facility in West Virginia, the company's board met by phone and agreed to offer each deceased miner's family the sum of $3 million.
That amount, it was thought, would help the miner's dependents financially, and help to stave off a wave of anticipated litigation over the cause of the explosion.
The Massey offer was greater than the average wrongful death settlement, which was $1.8 million in 2009. It is less, however, than the average jury verdict for wrongful death, $7.8 million for the same year.
It has become standard operating procedure for large companies to offer settlements in cases of workers killed on the job, for example, in the following cases involving explosions: the 11 workers on the BP oil rig; the 4 killed on the California gas line; and the 6 killed in the Connecticut power plant blast.
By early December, nine months after the offer had been made, only seven of the twenty-nine families had accepted it. Only three of those had been finalized by court action. Clearly the lure of certainty was not a decisive factor in the decision making process.
Some relatives did not appreciate the assigning of a dollar value to their kin.
Some just want their day in court.
Others have retained attorneys, and are waiting for the result of state and federal investigations into the cause(s) of the blast. If Massey Energy Co. was blamed for intentionally or recklessly causing it, punitive damages may become part of the damage equation.
The families can afford to take their time in consideration of the settlement offer. Widows are receiving miner's full salaries, from Massey, for the rest of their lives, or until they remarry. Medical benefits, child care expense and in-state college scholarship money is also available.
The material used for this entry is from the Wall Street Journal Dead Miners' Kin Wrestle With Choice to Settle or Sue, by Kris Maher.
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