UPDATE: Red Hill Water Crisis

Hawaiʻi Injury Lawyer Says It’s Not Too Late to Seek Compensation

Video Transcript:

Wayne Parsons: 

Right now, since this started, people have been going to doctors and not getting definitive answers about what it is and what to do about it. Although, it does look like it's related to the drinking water.

Molly Hendrickson: 

What new information should you know about The Red Hill storage facility leak? We're talking to attorney Wayne Parsons about that on today's episode of Ask The Lawyer. Wayne, thanks for joining us.

Wayne Parsons: 

It's good to be here. Glad to talk to you today.

Molly Hendrickson: 

So first up, can you give us an update, what has happened regarding these claims since the last time we spoke a few months ago?

Wayne Parsons: 

These are very big and complex claim structures. The first claims are in the form of a class action suit to collect economic damages for people who rented homes that were affected by this water contamination, and those are contract cases, those are a breach of contract cases under the Landlord-Tenant code and the Landlord-Tenant Code says, "If you have a rental property and the water is un-drinkable and you can't shower that it's uninhabitable and you don't have to pay rent." So that's the first claims. The real question there is, how long were those homes uninhabitable, when did it start? When did the water contamination start? And then when did people get out of there or it stop? Those cases are in court, we've just received our first document production, meaning the other side has given us documents, and in that case, the defendants are private companies that had agreements with the Navy that allowed them to rent those properties.

Wayne Parsons: 

Residential rental companies. And so those cases are in court and we're in the process of doing the initial discovery. The other type of cases for people who have had their health affected and people who drank that water or showered with that water or exposed to that water with gasoline in it, have had a wide variety of symptoms and signs of their body reacting badly to it, illnesses, strange neurological situations, and so those cases will be part of another type of litigation called tort litigation, and those cases will be filed starting soon to seek money damages for those people in terms of their health. And that includes their future health down the road. Are they gonna have additional health problems and what kind of money are they gonna need to protect themselves if they do have problems? And how are they gonna monitor their health between now and say, 20 years?

Molly Hendrickson: 

So these people came down with some severe symptoms, it sounds like, did they actually know what was causing these symptoms when they went to the doctor? Did they know what was wrong?

Wayne Parsons: 

Was a kind of a learning curve. We know that there was water... The drinking water was contaminated, and they were being told that the drinking water is okay, that was coming from their rental managers and from the Navy, and then it turns out the water was contaminated. People were getting sick, they were getting rashes. When you drink gasoline, if you consume gasoline, your body has all sorts of different reactions and anybody can Google that and most of our clients had Googled it already and seen, Oh my gosh, look at all the things that can affect you... From gastrointestinal to neurological problems, balance to skin rashes, all sorts of things, we had pregnant women in those houses that were carrying children, and we had a lot of young children, those communities are full of young children. So it's a wide variety of problems.

Wayne Parsons: 

And the doctors do not routinely have a person come into the office saying, "I drank gasoline," and the doctor says, "Oh well, I know what to do about that." So the doctors have been somewhat befuddled and oftentimes told people, "Well, I don't know," if people were very, very sick, they were hospitalized, but even then, the exact treatment you give somebody who's got a gastrointestinal problem or a skin rash or is having dizziness, visual problems, there's not a real good book on exactly what you treat them with, so a lot of it was to hope that the symptoms would go away and get them back home. And so right now, since this started, people have been going to doctors and not getting definitive answers about what it is and what to do about it. Although, it does look like it's related to the drinking water.

Molly Hendrickson: 

It's gonna be absolutely terrifying for these people, do they know any of the possible long-term effects this could have on their health?

Wayne Parsons: 

There's quite a good body of knowledge on what happens to people who ingest gasoline. And I'm using gasoline, sort of as the term... This was aircraft fuel, jet fuel, exactly what's in it is slightly different than what you... Or maybe greatly different than what you get in your car when you go to the gas station. But those things are known, there have been studies, there's lots of literature on it, but in any case, like this one, the real question is what's happening to these people and what are the long-term consequences going to be... For instance, there are many diseases like cancer that can be... Show up many years later, if you're exposed to a toxic substance like gasoline, so that is a work in progress, and our office is working with doctors and specialists and water contamination to understand gasoline...

Wayne Parsons: 

As a source of current or future problems. But a lot of people are suffering problems, and everyone is terrified. All the people that were on that water distribution system, not just in the community that we have initially filed a class action in, but there are several other communities, they're all connected by that pipeline that draws water out of the aquifer and distributes it to maybe 20000 homes. And so we're in the process of talking to people from each community and getting them involved so that they will be protected if later on, we were able to get remedies from the courts.

Molly Hendrickson: 

And as you're hearing from these people and they're expressing their concerns to you, what are you guys doing to ease some of their concerns?

Wayne Parsons: 

Well, again, the biggest concern that the people have when they call us, first of all, they all start out, everybody starts out by saying, Look, I'm not the kind of likes to file a lawsuit, I don't wanna get involved in lawsuits. I don't wanna get... I'm not doing... I'm really concerned about my health. That's what they tell us. They are concerned about their health, and I would say that for us as lawyers, that's our primary concern also, let's try to help these people get their health back and protect themselves in the future should they have any of these consequences such as a cancer or some type of a neurological problem or gastrointestinal problem that becomes permanent, we're working on that aspect of it first, and we're getting... Moving the cases into the Court system and into the administrative system to bring those claims, but we're working very hard on the health of our clients.

Molly Hendrickson: 

And it sounds like this is an ongoing issue. Can people still contact your office for help?

Wayne Parsons: 

Yes, the class action cases. And we filed one. Another law firm here has filed one and we're coordinating and working together on that, there's another law firm that's looking at the injury cases, so we're coordinating with all of them. We are eager to talk to anyone who has not spoken with a lawyer yet who wants to find out what their rights are and what they should do, and what's going on, and the other communities where our first case... Our clients came from Kapalina, but we have clients from other housing developments on that in that network, and so we would like to talk to as many people who have had a problem, a particular... Anyone who felt who was sick enough to go to a doctor, they should definitely contact a lawyer and find out what their rights are. It's not gonna cost them anything. And they can get information that way. So call my office and we'll talk to you about what your situation is.

Molly Hendrickson: 

And we understand you guys have actually put together a whole team to help deal with these claims. Is that right?

Wayne Parsons: 

Yes, when this first started back late last year, I had been talking to a mainland firm who I dealt with in some other cases here in Hawaii, and I was very concerned about what was gonna happen. The big picture for the state, for our community. And obviously the state of Hawaii, the Board of Water Supply is in serious discussions with the Navy, the Department of Defense, there's been an EPA study done. There's lots of people at that level trying to sort this out, get the problem solved, maybe remove the fuel tanks that have been the source of this water contamination, that process is going on. And we, like all the residents of the state should let that process go forward and support the efforts of the state and the board of water supply to get this worked out, and hopefully the good will of the Navy and the federal government to do the right things to protect the community. But our team, we knew we needed to bring certain kind of claims, so I involved the Bickerton Law Group, Jim Bickerton is one of our finest trial lawyers here. I'm a trial lawyer, that's what I do, and I brought Jim and his office in, they do very impressive work on class actions, and I brought them in for that purpose initially, and they have...

Wayne Parsons: 

We've all filed the class actions, but Jim and his team are doing the lion's share of the work on that and have the expertise, and then I'm also talking with Anderson Thornton, which is at Irvine California Law Firm, and they have expertise in large toxic contamination cases and large litigation over personal injuries from mass sources, and so we're developing a relationship where they are advising us in consulting, so they're not attorneys representing clients in the state of Hawaii, but they may be in the future. I have recently spoken with some of the lead counsel in the Flint-Michigan Water case, that's another huge water contamination case affecting the City of Flint, Michigan, and picking their brains, their friends in the legal profession. And we're trying to develop the tools we need to adequately address the problems for the people here in Hawaii.

Molly Hendrickson: 

Long road ahead, but we know you'll be on it. Thanks for taking the time to talk to us.

Wayne Parsons: 

It's good to talk to you. Thank you. And yes, we're in for the long haul.

Molly Hendrickson: 

That's gonna do it for this episode of Ask The Lawyer. My guest has been Wayne Parsons, if you wanna ask him about your situation... Call the number on your screen. Thanks for watching. I'm Molly Hendrickson for Ask The Lawyers.

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