Employees at a Pennsylvania chocolate factory that exploded last month reported a gas leak to management minutes before the blast, but their suspicions were ignored, according to a lawsuit filed Tuesday.
Workers at the R.M. Palmer Co. factory in West Reading smelled gas on March 24 and told their bosses about it, the suit says. But the managers sent people back to work.
Minutes later, the explosion destroyed the factory about 60 miles northwest of Philadelphia. Seven people were killed in the disaster, and several others were injured. It took first responders days to find all the bodies.
The family of Judith Lopez-Moran, a 55-year-old woman who was one of the seven people killed, responded with the lawsuit filed Tuesday in Philadelphia.
R.M. Palmer Co. management “had actual and/or constructive knowledge of a potential gas leak near and/or in the factory,” according to the suit. However, the bosses told factory workers, “including Judith Lopez-Moran, that there was no gas leak and that the workers were to continue working.”
The suit further claims that management “intended to mislead the factory workers … so that factory downtime would be minimized.” That “intentional misrepresentation” convinced Lopez-Moran and others to return to work, making the bosses directly responsible for her death, the suit argues.
In addition to R.M. Palmer Co., the suit names natural gas provider UGI as a defendant. The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the incident and has described the blast as a “natural gas explosion.”
Neither R.M. Palmer Co. nor UGI immediately responded to the lawsuit.
“The seven who we lost will always be in our prayers, and to those who were injured we wish a speedy recovery,” the Palmer family said in a statement shortly after the explosion. “Over the many years that we have worked together, many became personal friends and all valued members of the Palmer team. Their loss will be felt forever.”
The law firm representing Lopez-Moran’s family, Saltz Mongeluzzi Bendesky, said it also represents multiple other victims and families of victims from the explosion.