Starting in 2000, Jamison and about 5,100 other Columbus, Mississippi, residents sued Kerr-McGee for alleged creosote damage. In 2003, Kerr-McGee closed the plant, which now stands abandoned on a 90-acre tract of parched grass surrounded by a chain-link fence. Three years later, the company transferred most of its environmental liabilities, along with its pigment-making unit, to a new company called Tronox Inc. In June 2006, three months after the spinoff was complete, Kerr-McGee sold its profitable oil and gas business for $18 billion to Anadarko.
Tronox Bankruptcy
Tronox declared bankruptcy in 2009. It said it was spending as much as $126 million a year on Kerr-McGee's old environmental messes and had spent $27 million on related tort claims since its spinoff.
Tronox then sued Anadarko, claiming in the suit that in 2001, Kerr-McGee had begun to separate oil and gas assets from toxic liabilities and in 2005 launched the bad stuff onto shareholders through an initial public offering of Tronox. Top managers and the most-profitable assets went to Anadarko, it said.
The Justice Department joined the lawsuit, saying the U.S. was the victim of any sham transfer and should get that money back because it was owed unknown billions for pollution that Kerr-McGee had refused to clean up, making it Tronox's largest creditor.
'Die Is Cast'
A 2010 settlement between the EPA and Tronox cleared Tronox to exit bankruptcy with its pigment unit intact and 70 years' worth of liabilities wiped out.
Tronox paid the EPA $320 million and agreed that the EPA and state environmental agencies would get 88 percent of whatever could be recovered from Anadarko for toxic cleanups. The settlement set up trusts to collect and distribute any money awarded from the $25 billion suit.
The May trial will bring Jamison closer to resolving his 12-year quest for compensation. He and 8,100 others across the country who seek a total of $2 billion are in line for the remaining 12 percent of what the U.S. wins. To do so, they must meet strict guidelines. They must have filed suits for personal injuries before Tronox exited bankruptcy last year and proved they suffer from one of 10 illnesses.
Out Of Luck