A Texas jury has awarded $2.925 million to a family that filed suit after their air and drinking water were contaminated by an oil and gas company, a win attorneys are calling "the first fracking verdict in U.S. history," according to a post on DeSmogBlog.
Plaintiffs Bob and Lisa Parr sued Aruba Petroleum Inc. in 2011 alleging that drilling and fracking at the company's 22 sites, located within a few miles of their home, were making them sick.
"My daughter was experiencing nose bleeds, rashes and there were some mornings she would wake up covered in blood ... screaming and crying," Lisa Parr said during a 2011 press conference.
Despite Aruba Petroleum's plans to appeal the verdict, the Parr's attorneys said the family has been "vindicated."
“I’m really proud of the family that went through what they went through and said, ‘I’m not going to take it anymore,'" attorney David Matthews wrote in a blog post on his firm's site. "It takes guts to say, ‘I’m going to stand here and protect my family from an invasion of our right to enjoy our property.’ It’s not easy to go through a lawsuit and have your personal life uncovered and exposed to the extent this family went through.”
The judgement includes $275,000 for the Parr's loss in property value and $2 million for pain and suffering, as well as $250,000 for future physical pain and suffering and $400,000 for past mental anguish.
You can read their petition to the court, filed in March 2011, on the DeSmogBlog site.
(h/t Grist)
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