On August 14, 2023, the Honorable Stephen E. Balogh, Associate Judge of the 17th Judicial Circuit, Winnebago County, Illinois, granted the motion of the class plaintiffs for leave to seek punitive damages against defendant Chemtool, Incorporated.  The Court found that the class plaintiffs had demonstrated a reasonable likelihood of proving facts at trial sufficient to support an award of punitive damages for their claim that Chemtool engaged in willful and wanton conduct in connection with a fire and series of explosions that occurred in June 2021 at Chemtool’s grease and lubricant manufacturing facility in Rockton, Illinois.  The Court found that class plaintiffs’ second amended complaint contained well-pled allegations that Chemtool operated the facility without an operable fire suppression system and “knew and disregarded the risk and foreseeability of a fire as well as the substantial likelihood of injury to both property and people.”  The Court further found that many of class plaintiffs’ allegations “are supported by evidence already obtained through discovery and which will likely be admissible at trial.”

A copy of the Court’s ordered may be accessed here

The class plaintiffs are represented by Miner, Barnhill & Galland’s Robert Libman, together with co-lead counsel Daniel Rock Flynn of DiCello Levitt, and Robert M. Foote of Foote, Mielke, Chaves & O’Neil, LLC, along with the plaintiffs’ executive committee members Deanna Pihos of Miner, Barnhill & Galland, Edwards J. Manzke of the Collins Law Firm, P.C., David Neiman or Romanucci & Blandin, LLC, Steven Hart of Hart McLaughlin & Eldridge, LLC, and class liaison counsel Marc C. Gravino of Williams McCarthy LLP