An Indiana entrepreneur (the ENT) owned and operated several Convenience Stores and Gas Stations. A multibillion dollar company (the MBC), one of the world’s largest operators, franchisors, and licensors of convenience stores operating in 20 countries, subsequently owned one of the sites. A class action lawsuit by residents downgradient from the site sought compensation from ENT and MBC for groundwater contamination.
Attorneys for the MBC hired a high-powered law firm and a 2000-person international environmental consulting firm. The attorneys also hired a high-powered forensic expert who claimed that the ENT was responsible for all of the contamination.
The MBC claimed that the ENT was solely responsible for contaminating the groundwater beneath the residential neighborhood downgradient from the site they bought and, therefore, the ENT was totally responsible for paying for the multi-million dollar class-action lawsuit.
The attorney for the entrepreneur hired The Dragun Corporation to evaluate the data. What did Dragun do?
- First, we did not blindly accept the MBC’s groundwater evaluation or groundwater model – we did our own evaluation and examined everything.
- Second, we discovered that the data indicated our client was responsible for about a third of the damage.
- Third, we found that their high-powered forensic expert misinterpreted the hydrogeology.
- Fourth, we discovered that their high-powered expert used a tracer chemical to allocate responsibility that is totally inappropriate for this site.
- Fifth, during trial, we successfully defended our findings and exposed the flaws in the MBCs forensic expert’s opinions.
The judge’s ruling showed that he agreed with our analysis. Even though our client had to pay a fraction of the award to the neighbors, he was so happy when he heard the news, he actually cried. The MBC had to pay about five times more!