PROVIDENCE -- Almost 50 lawyers, many of them from out of state, crowded into the courtroom of Senior U.S. District Judge Ronald R. Lagueux yesterday for a hearing to determine where civil lawsuits stemming from The Station nightclub fire will be tried.
The standing-room-only crowd that came to hear the arguments on the jurisdictional question represented a who's-who of the Rhode Island trial bar and a bevy of well-known trial lawyers from throughout the United States. Most of the out-of-state lawyers present were representing parties who have been sued in connection with the Feb. 20 fire in West Warwick, in which 100 people died and more than 200 were injured. The fire broke out after the rock band Great White set off pyrotechnics, which ignited highly flammable packing foam that the owners of The Station had installed as soundproofing.
Anheuser-Busch, the St. Louis beer manufacturer, which has been sued for allegedly being a sponsor of the concert, had five lawyers at the hearing; Clear Channel Communications, another defendant and alleged sponsor, had four lawyers representing its interests. Three lawyers were representing Jack Russell, the lead singer for Great White.
But after hearing two hours of arguments from five lawyers -- two who favor transfer to the Rhode Island Superior Court and three who want the federal court to retain jurisdiction -- Lagueux announced that he and his law clerks would do more legal research before he rendered a decision. He said he would issue a written decision at a later date.
Lagueux must determine whether all of the civil lawsuits brought on behalf of the fire victims and their families should be heard in U.S. District Court, Providence, or whether the fire was essentially a local tragedy. In that case, he would decline jurisdiction and the cases would be heard in the Rhode Island Superior Court.
The key issues Lagueux said he must tackle to decide the issue are:
Whether a "substantial majority" of The Station fire plaintiffs and the "primary defendants" they are suing are from Rhode Island -- which would make the Superior Court the appropriate venue.
What Congress intended when it enacted a new law, which took effect just 18 days before the nightclub fire, that makes it easier for plaintiffs or defendants to have the federal court hear lawsuits that stem from accidents that cause at least 75 deaths.
The Providence Journal has confirmed the identities of 430 people who were at The Station when the fire broke out. Of the 100 who died, 59 were Rhode Islanders; 33 were from Massachusetts; 5 were from Connecticut; 2 from California; and 1 from Florida. Of the 330 survivors, 208 are Rhode Islanders; 76 from Massachusetts; 12 from Connecticut; 3 from Washington; 3 from California; 2 from New York; 2 from Louisiana; 1 from Ohio; 1 from Nevada; 1 from Maine; and 21 whose residences are unknown.
Historically, such cases would have been heard by a state court. But jurisdiction has been muddied by the newly enacted federal law. Lagueux is being asked to interpret what Congress intended when it approved the legislation.
Under the new federal law, if an accident causes at least 75 deaths, one victim is from a state different from where the accident occurred, "any two defendants reside in different states" and any adverse parties are from different states, the federal court may hear the matter.
Currently, only seven lawsuits have been filed in connection with the fire. All except two currently reside in U.S. District Court, Providence. The other two are in federal court in Boston, but Brian Cunha, the lawyer who has filed those cases, has agreed to refile them in Providence if Lagueux keeps all the fire cases in his court, lawyer Ronald J. Resmini said yesterday.
A slew of other lawsuits is expected to be brought in months to come.
Lagueux has indicated that whatever decision he makes on the jurisdictional issue, he will probably ask the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to review it.
The possibility that an appellate court might -- years down the line -- strike down the new federal law loomed large in the arguments made before Lagueux yesterday by Max Wistow, a court-appointed interim lead counsel for the fire victims. Wistow, who told Lagueux that he was speaking on behalf of 185 dead and injured fire victims and an eight-lawyer committee that represents them, urged the judge to send all of the cases back to Superior Court for resolution.
It's clear from over 200 years of precedent, said Wistow, that the Superior Court has the authority to hear such cases. But it is very unclear, he said, whether the newly enacted federal law would stand up to appellate review. And if a circuit court or the U.S. Supreme Court were to decide, years from now, that there were fatal flaws in the wording of the new statute, the cases would have to be tried all over again -- at great expense.
"We ask this court . . . to declare that it has no jurisdiction" to hear The Station fire lawsuits, Wistow told Lagueux. "This statute is so flawed and so rank with problems that we're concerned we'll spend years here" only to find that an appellate court rules that it was wrong for the federal court to have taken the cases.
Wistow said the U.S. District Court cannot hear a case where the primary defendants and a substantial majority of the plaintiffs are from the same state.
"I agree with you," said Lagueux. "It's mandatory by statute that I must abstain," if he finds that most of The Station fire plaintiffs and the primary defendants are from Rhode Island. Lageueux also agreed with Wistow's assessment that the new federal law had been badly drafted.
He says it is now up to him to determine what the terms "primary defendants" and "substantial majority of plaintiffs" mean.
"In this case, the truth that I have to find is what Congress intended. . . . I'm the first line and I'm going to construe it and if necessary, we'll get it to the 1st Circuit and see whether I'm right or wrong," he said.
It is unclear which way Lagueux is leaning. At one point, he told Wistow that if he were to adopt his arguments, there would be Station fire cases filed in state courts all across the country. "Congress intended to have these mass disaster tort cases in one court," he said. "That's what I have to keep in mind when I'm construing this statute."
But Mark Mandell, another lawyer representing the plaintiffs, argued that the only disasters Congress intended to be covered by the new law were airplane and train crashes and big hotel fires where the victims were from all over the United States and from foreign countries.
Edward Crane, a Chicago lawyer representing Anheuser-Busch, disagreed. The Station nightclub fire was "exactly the type of [case] that Congress envisioned when it enacted the new law," he argued. "This tragedy is national in scope." Forty-one of the 100 people killed in the fire lived outside of Rhode Island, he pointed out. And if Lagueux were to send the cases back to state court, multiple Station fires would be filed all over the country, which would create a host of problems with case management, Crane said.
