Tyler Hooper's List: Fracking and Drilling

• In Landmark Ruling, Jury Says Fracking Company Must Pay $3 Million To Sickened Family
• A family claiming they were sickened because of pollution from hydraulic fracturing operations near their home should be awarded $2.95 million for their troubles, a jury ruled on Tuesday.
• The Parr family had sued Aruba Petroleum Inc. in 2011, alleging the oil and gas producer exposed them to hazardous gases, chemicals and industrial waste that seeped into the air from 22 wells drilled near the family’s 40-acre plot of land, which sits atop the Barnett Shale.
• The jury returned a 5-1 verdict saying Aruba “intentionally created a private nuisance,” awarding $275,000 for losses on property value, $2 million for past physical pain and suffering, $250,000 for future physical pain and suffering, and $400,000 for mental anguish.
• Still, the decision is being hailed as the first jury verdict in a fracking case to date. And if it’s not the first, then certainly the biggest, according to Earthjustice managing attorney Deborah Goldberg, who works closely on fracking cases. This is because fracking companies have largely able to dodge injury lawsuits over their operations.
• “A lot of the earlier tort cases [against fracking companies] were dismissed because the industry was so successful at withholding information that people couldn’t draw connections between the problems and what industry were doing,” Goldberg told ThinkProgress. “Now studies are starting to be done, and people are beginning to realize that they can document what the impacts are going to be.”

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