Local News in Brief : Brea : Rubber Factory Sued Over Worker’s Injury
A county factory worker who was injured one year ago in an explosion has sued the managers of the Brea rubber factory where he worked, asserting that they failed to warn their employees adequately about proper work safeguards.
Luis Alberto Tinoco said in a civil suit filed Tuesday in Superior Court in Santa Ana that he suffered unspecified and permanent injuries in an Oct. 19, 1987, chemical explosion at the Kirkhill Rubber Plant.
For the record:
12:00 a.m. Oct. 21, 1988 For the Record
Los Angeles Times Friday October 21, 1988 Orange County Edition Metro Part 2 Page 2 Column 5 Metro Desk 2 inches; 69 words Type of Material: Correction
The defendant in a factory worker’s lawsuit was misidentified in a story Wednesday. Worker Luis Alberto Tinco, who was injured in an explosion a year ago at the Kirkhill Rubber Co. plant in Brea, has sued Hexcel Corp. Inc., based in Dublin, Calif., which he said manufactures and sells a product that was involved in the explosion. The story also incorrectly identified Hexcel as Kirkhill Rubber’s parent company. Kirkhill, which is not a defendant in the lawsuit, is not associated with Hexcel.
The employee had been working with a sodium nitrate mixture called Paraplast 8101. The suit alleged that the mixture was unsafe for its intended use at the plant and that the officials at Kirkhill and parent company Hexcel Corp. Inc. neglected to warn workers about the product’s potential dangers.
Tinoco’s suit also pointed to a federal directive that he said mandated such a warning.
