Civil Trial Closing in Gas Leak Deaths

A geyser of oil and water erupted from the defunct well on the Rincon. Toxic fumes suffused the air.

Within minutes of the noontime gas leak, three men were dead and three others seriously injured from the unseen, poisonous gas.

That was Aug. 10, 1994.

In closing arguments Tuesday as a five-month civil trial neared its conclusion, plaintiffs’ attorney Steven Archer contended that Vintage Petroleum of Tulsa, Okla., which owns the land, is to blame for the deaths of Ronald Johnson, Sean Harris and Jason Hoskins.

“What happened on that hot and dusty oil field on Aug. 10,” Archer said, “what resulted in the deaths of Ronnie, Sean and Jason, what shattered their lives and changed the lives of others through their deaths, were assumptions made by Vintage Petroleum.”

Those assumptions, according to Archer, ranged from assuming there was no gas in the zone being probed to assuming there was no build-up of pressure likely in the 70-year-old oil well.

The defense has alleged in a brief filed with the court that its subcontractors are at fault for the deaths.

Archer argued that Vintage was negligent in nine ways, including not following its own company safety procedures, placing a portion of the well underground instead of above ground as required by Vintage’s safety manual and, perhaps most important, leaving the flow line unconnected.

The flow line is a piece of safety equipment that should have been hooked up to the aging well once the workers saw oil moving, but was not, Archer said.

“The liability for the tragedy of this accident is Vintage’s responsibility,” Archer said. “Over and over again through Aug. 10, the company said, ‘no gas, no pressure’ . . . and the one assumption Vintage made that was the greatest mistake of all, is that nothing could go wrong on the job.”

But it did.

And four years later those who survived, and the relatives of those who died, sat crowded in a Ventura courtroom to see where the blame would be laid.

The defense did not have a chance to make arguments Tuesday, but in a closing trial brief filed with the court, attorney Bruce Allan Finck writes that “Vintage Petroleum cannot be held liable for the negligence of independent contractors at the well site, resulting in injury and death to Pride and Schlumberger employees.”

He also writes that the independent contractors were hired to comply with the well’s drilling and safety plans and the Department of Oil and Gas permit. Two oil companies--Pride Petroleum Service Co. and Schlumberger Wireline and Testing--were fined $94,000 in 1995 by Cal/OSHA, the state’s industrial safety agency, for 15 violations of worker safety regulations in connection with the three deaths. The gas leak occurred at Vintage Petroleum’s oil production plant in the foothills of Rincon Mountain in Seacliff, just off the Ventura Freeway, as workers were redrilling an old oil well.

Workers were in a pit injecting water down a steel pipe to try to force oil to the surface. When the men removed their nozzles, water started gushing out of the ground.

The men were immediately overcome by the subsequent gas, which sent three of them into cardiac arrest, while the others experienced respiratory problems.

The three workers died as a result of carbon monoxide poisoning, according to toxicology reports made public in September 1994 by Ventura County coroner’s officials. Archer argued Tuesday that it was instead a combination of poisonous gases that killed them.

Johnson died at the scene, and Hoskins and Harris died at a Ventura hospital a short time after the lunchtime incident. Johnson and Hoskins were Ventura residents, and Harris lived in Oxnard.

The families of the three men killed, as well as the three survivors--Derek Abbott, Jerry Walker and Toby Thrower--have had their cases consolidated into a single case against Vintage Petroleum. This is the liability phase of the case.

The second phase of the trial--injuries and damages--will commence next week. Archer said all the cases together could result in a request for damages of more than $10 million.

Both attorneys waived a jury trial for this case because of its length and the technical sophistication of the arguments. Instead, the case is being heard by Superior Court Judge Barbara Lane.

Families and residents in court Tuesday said the accident continues to haunt them.

Bruce Harris, father of Sean, said initially he just wanted to put Vintage out of business.

“We just want to make sure that something like this doesn’t happen again, that things change, that we don’t have other families that have to go through this,” said Carol Davis, Harris’ ex-wife and Sean’s mother.

But the lingering pain of the loss of a son is what hurts most.”He was my only child,” Davis said, beginning to cry. “I’ve remarried, and I have stepchildren, but I never had any more children. I will never have grandchildren, I will never get to see my child walk down the aisle and get married.”

Abbott, Harris’ co-worker, who was in court Tuesday, started to talk, then rushed away. “Derek gets very emotional,” Davis said. “He was there, sitting right next to Sean. He feels like he didn’t know enough. He keeps apologizing . . . “

Archer summed up to Lane: “These are threads of negligence. But together they weave a tragic fabric.”

The plaintiffs will conclude their closing arguments tomorrow and defense attorney Finck will begin his.