West explosion lawsuit defendants renew stall tactics

Not yet satisfied with getting civil suits delayed until September 2015 or later, the Adair Grain Co., which had the fertilizer plant in West, Texas, its suppliers, and others, are seeking to delay their suits further.

They claim they can't prepare a proper defense because the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms won't release information from its criminal probe and that it may extend that.

That's all well and good, but let's not be too sympathetic, certainly not to two fertilizer company defendants, since they blame the city of West for causing this:

El Dorado and CF Industries contend the city was negligent because it failed to properly train the first responders and had insufficient protocols in place to battle the blaze at West Fertilizer that triggered the explosion.

A motion from CF Industries also seeks to designate as a responsible party an unknown “John Doe,” who the motion said may have started the fire, and the makers of a golf cart, which was inside the plant and may have caused the fire through a potential electrical short, the State Fire Marshal’s Office has said. A motion from El Dorado also alleges that the city should be named as a responsible third party because it failed to protect its citizens by allowing through its zoning authority schools and a nursing home to operate in a close proximity to the plant.

You don't get much sicker than that.

Was John Doe on the grassy knoll? Are you sure there wasn't a second golf cart driver as well?

It's the civil law equivalent of the joke about the guy murdering his parents then asking the court for mercy because he's an orphan.

And, unless the State Fire Marshal's office has HUGELY improved over its Cameron Todd Willingham performance, I wouldn't really trust its claims too much, you know?