EAST ST. LOUIS – Destruction of a Louisiana contractor’s records about an explosion at the Phillips 66 refinery in Wood River didn’t sway jurors in U.S. district court, who found in favor of the defendant after they learned that a hurricane blew the records away.
On April 26, jurors cleared Miller Environmental Services of liability for the explosion, and they assigned all liability to Michigan contractor HydroChem.
Prior to trial, Magistrate Judge Mark Beatty ruled that he wouldn’t instruct jurors to infer that the records would have harmed Miller’s case.
The explosion happened in 2018, as Miller and HydroChem cleaned a sulfur recovery unit.
Miller boilermaker Earl Pursell of Tammany Parish, Louisiana, suffered injuries.
He and wife Monica sued Phillips 66 and HydroChem in Madison County Circuit Court in 2020.
HydroChem removed the complaint to district court on the basis of diverse citizenship.
Hydrochem filed a third party complaint against Miller in 2021.
Later that year, the Pursells settled with Phillips 66 and HydroChem.
Beatty then set trial on HydroChem’s complaint for recovery from Miller.
As trial approached, HydroChem counsel Tracy Cowan of St. Louis argued that destruction of Miller’s documents warranted sanctions.
He cited a case where Seventh Circuit judges found document destruction highly suspicious.
He asked Beatty to issue a jury instruction for an adverse inference.
Miller counsel Patrick Ruberry of Chicago responded that Miller kept the records in a trailer on its property at Sulphur, Louisiana.
He stated that Hurricane Laura destroyed the trailer and its contents in 2020.
He asked Beatty to exclude evidence about the destruction.
Beatty denied the jury instruction, finding the destruction was not suspicious.
He denied Miller’s motion to exclude the evidence, calling it necessary background.
He cautioned the parties that he would not permit a trial within a trial on the issue.
They mostly heeded his warning and conducted trial as a chemistry lesson, but Cowan tried more than once to arouse suspicion.
He asked Miller’s witness Brett Haynes if the conduct of a safety meeting could be identified in a job log, and Haynes said yes.
Cowan said, “But you don’t have them?”
Ruberry objected and said it was the fifth time.
When Ruberry asked Haynes what he learned about the records, Cowan objected.
Beatty said it was fair game and Ruberry repeated the question.
Haynes said, “A hurricane had basically destroyed the chemical trailer and the Sulphur office.”
Cowan asked if Miller filed an insurance claim on the trailer.
Ruberry objected and Beatty called the lawyers to the bench.
Cowan said there were no documents in the claim.
Ruberry said, “How would one make a claim for documents?”
Beatty said he’d sustain the objection.
Cowan said, “There is evidence to the contrary that those documents were never in that trailer.”
Beatty said, “I sustained the objection.”
Cowan asked the witness if the hurricane didn’t destroy documents in electronic format.
Ruberry objected and Beatty sustained it.
During closing arguments, Cowan told jurors Miller was 100 percent liable.
He said job logs would tell whether Miller performed a task long enough, “and we don’t have that information.”
He added that Miller purportedly did a safety analysis and they didn’t have that.
“Not everything was washed away,” he said.
Cowan said Miller never explained why they had some documents but no job logs or safety plans.
“What about electronic documents?” he asked.
Ruberry objected and said there was no evidence of any digital format.
Cowan said, “These weren’t just any documents.”
“They were documents that established what Miller did after an industrial accident and they weren’t segregated, set aside, or anything,” he said.
“Nobody testified the electronic were washed away from the internet,” he said.
“Emails? Were they washed away in the hurricane? We don’t have any of those,” Cowan added.
“I’ll leave that up to you to decide what that means,” he continued.
Ruberry told jurors, “I’ve got a news flash for Mr. Cowan and his clients. We don’t have to prove anything. We don’t have to disprove anything.”
He said Cowan shouldn’t move his case forward with innuendo and aspersions.
He told jurors to remember that the Pursells sued HydroChem, not Miller.
He said Phillips 66 was satisfied with Miller’s work.
Jurors deliberated for an hour and 35 minutes and returned a verdict for Miller.