BATON ROUGE, La. (Legal Newsline) – The manufacturer of a valve involved in a 2016 explosion at an Exxon refinery in Louisiana will need to mount a stronger defense in lawsuits brought by two burn victims.
Flowserve argued it wasn’t its fault that an Exxon worker removed the valve’s gearbox while the line was still pressurized, which resulted in isobutene escaping and making its way to an ignition source. The explosion caused a fire that injured several people in the area.
The state First Circuit Court of Appeal ruled Dec. 30 to overturn a trial court judgment in favor of Flowserve. The appeals court says there still remains question as to whether the valve had a defective design under Louisiana products liability law and whether a safer, alternative design was available.
One of the two plaintiffs submitted expert testimony regarding valves used in the 1970s on which gearboxes were not attached to pressure-containing parts.
“Mindful that factual inferences reasonably drawn from the evidence must be construed in favor of the opponent to summary judgment and that any doubt must be resolved in favor of denying the motion for summary judgment, we conclude that, on the showing made, whether an alternative design of the valve existed that was capable of preventing (plaintiff Derrick) Daigrepont's damage is an outstanding issue of material fact, which must be submitted to the trier of fact and cannot be resolved on summary judgment,” Judge Vanessa Guidry-Whipple wrote.
The Exxon worker was unable to operate the valve using its handwheel, so he was removing a gearbox to gain access to the valve stem, which he intended to open.
But four vertical bolts attached to the gearbox bracket also secured the top cap of the valve. Removing them in order to move the gearbox allowed isobutene to escape the top cap.