Homeowners, experts tell judge damages and potential sinkhole fixes too costly for individual lawsuits
RAPID CITY, SD, April 20, 2022 /PRNewswire/ — Hideaway Hills homeowners have completed an important step in efforts to obtain justice for damages caused when a state-owned mine began collapsing beneath their neighborhood.
During a class-certification hearing earlier in April, residents and scientific experts tested about how a class action lawsuit is the best recourse for all 158 households in the neighborhood. The team from the Fox Rothschild law firm introduced extensive research material and other records documenting that underground instability caused by the shuttered mine has rendered every home in the neighborhood worthless.
“The damage that the state of South Dakota caused must be considered as a whole. It simply does not make sense to require these homeowners to go to court one at a time. It would not be economically feasible, and it would take far too long,” said Fox Rothschild trial lawyer Kathleen Barrow. “The state has damaged this entire community, so justice must take every household into account.”
The underground dangers were exposed in April 2020 when a mine collapsed opened a large hole near East Daisy Drive. According to geological and engineering analysis, correcting the subsurface dangers would require removing the homes, which would cost more than the homes are worth and provide no guarantee that the remediation would work. In addition, mounting a lawsuit would be too costly for any individual homeowner. As a class-action lawsuit, those costs would be shared by all of the plaintiffs.
Circuit Court Judge Kevin Krull will rule on the class certification later this year. If certified, all Hideaway Hills homeowners will be included in the lawsuit unless they choose to opt out. Judge Krull previously ruled that the homeowners “demonstrated that their injuries likely will be redressed by a favorable decision – ie, an award of damages, based on their constitutional right to individually bring an inverse condemnation case against the State.”
The case is Andrew Morse otherJohn and Emily Clarke et al. v. State of South Dakota et al., no. 46CIV-20-000295 in the Circuit Court, 4th Judicial District, County of Meade, South Dakota.
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SOURCE Fox Rothschild
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