Dust lawsuit settled out of court
NORTH PLATTE, Neb. — A tentative Nebraska wrongful death settlement has been reached in a Nebraska wrongful death lawsuit contending that thick dust blowing off a Nebraska ranch contributed to a three-fatality accident on Interstate 80 in 2005.
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A fatal 2005 "brownout" on I-80 near North Platte, Neb., has prompted a lawsuit from survivors of two of the victims.
A jury trial had been scheduled to begin Tuesday in the lawsuit brought by family members of two women killed in the eight-vehicle chain-reaction pileup. The trial was called off.
Lawyers for the families of Jeanne Kerechanin, 54, and Pamela Hartman, 46, had alleged that poor soil-erosion control practices of the U-Cross Ranch, which is adjacent to I-80, caused the thick dust cloud that sparked the fiery accident.
Drivers of three semitrailer trucks, and the companies that employed them, also were named as defendants.
One of the trucking companies, Handei Mack, agreed to pay $237,500 to settle the suit.
Other settlement terms were not made public Tuesday.
Legal observers said the case could have affected a large number of Nebraska ranches and farms because dust is naturally generated by such operations.
But Anthony Schutz, an agriculture law professor at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, said the out-of-court settlement was good news for ranchers because it won't establish or change any precedents in that area of law.
Currently, Schutz said, a plaintiff would have to show that a farmer or rancher did something unreasonable or abnormal to make the dust cloud worse and cause a risk to nearby motorists.
The U-Cross Ranch had disputed any liability in the crash that occurred about 2:30 p.m. on March 10, 2005.
The ranch said the dust storm was clearly visible to motorists, had been the subject of weather advisories all day, and that drivers should have been able to take steps to avoid the hazard.
U-Cross attorney Dan Chesire of Omaha also said in a court brief that the ranch used sound erosion prevention methods and turned on center-pivot irrigation systems in an effort to control the dust that was whipped by 50 mph winds.
Chesire said Tuesday that he could not comment on the terms of the settlement but acknowledged that the ranch was among those involved in the agreement.
The families of the two women, represented by North Platte attorneys Martin Troshynski and Bob Lindemeier, had argued that the ranch didn't do enough to control soil erosion and should have notified local law enforcement about the dangerous dust cloud.
The truckers, the lawsuit argued, were driving too fast or following too closely for the conditions.
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