Judge certifies fire lawsuit a class action

A U.S. district judge has certified as a class action a lawsuit filed after the April 2023 plastics fire in Richmond.

Judge Tanya Walton Pratt of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana filed her order Sept. 29 in the lawsuit by Tushawn Craig and Marquetta Stokes accusing the city of Richmond, Cornerstone Trading Group and its owner, Seth Smith, of negligence that led to the fire. Pratt decided the negligence decision applies to each of the more than 2,000 possible individual cases.

The fire ignited April 11, 2023, on one of three North West F Street properties where Cornerstone stored plastics waiting to be recycled, sending black, toxic smoke into the air and resulting in Wayne County Emergency Management Agency issuing an evacuation order for a half-mile radius around the fire site. The evacuation order lasted until April 16.

Indiana Homeland Security reports indicate that more than 2,000 people were impacted by the evacuation order. The lawsuit filed by Craig and Stokes seeks repayment of costs incurred and loss of income during the evacuation, damages for physical and mental health problems from smoke and debris, and for invasion of property by the smoke and debris.

Pratt has allowed the class action to be divided into two subclasses: owners of property within the evacuation area and nonowners residing within the area. The judge ruled that the lawsuit met requirements of a class action and that a class action is the best way to handle claims rather than individual trials. She also noted that individuals might be dissuaded from filing single claims because of their lesser amounts and that minors in the class action could not file individual actions.

A second lawsuit that includes 98 individuals and two businesses also has been assigned to the Southern District of Indiana court. It was filed earlier this year and makes the same claims as the now-class action. Craig and Stokes were part of that lawsuit as well, but they’ve since been removed from it.

In addition, Ike Martin Ekwealor and Martin Ekwealor Pharmaceuticals, a neighboring business, filed suit in Wayne County Superior Court 2. It claims that Cornerstone deposited plastics on the Ekwealor property and that those plastics burned during the fire. It also claims two warehouses were consumed by the fire and a third damaged, and that fire debris and fumes spread throughout the Ekwealor property and created offensive contact with Ekwealor.

Through unsafe building procedures, Richmond ordered Cornerstone to clear its plastics inventory from the three properties — 308 N.W. F St., 310 N.W. F St. and 358 N.W. F St. When cleanup did not proceed, the city used tax routes to purchase the 310 and 358 properties, hoping to spur Cornerstone’s compliance. Cornerstone maintains ownership of the 308 property.

All three properties were consumed by flames that burned the stored plastic, buildings and trailers. The toxic smoke and debris were blown eastward across the city and into Ohio.