Delta to pay $78 million to settle fuel dump class action

LOS ANGELES (CN) — Delta has agreed to pay more than $78 million to settle a federal class action over a 2020 fuel dump that doused tens of thousands of homes in LA County, as well as five schools.

The settlement — which is a product of more than three years of mediation and needs to be approved by a federal judge — includes more than $28 million earmarked for plaintiff attorneys and litigation costs, or just over 30%, according to Delta and the plaintiffs in a Monday court filing. Of the remaining funds, nearly $34 million will go to property owners and nearly $17 million to residents.

If every single eligible class member filed a claim, each property owner would be entitled to $888.82, while each resident would get $104.34.

The case arises out of Delta flight No. DL89, a Jan. 14, 2020, flight from LAX heading to Shanghai. According to multiple media reports, the aircraft experienced an engine malfunction shortly before takeoff, and the pilots turned the plane around. When air traffic control asked if they wanted to remain over the ocean to dump fuel, which makes emergency landings safer since it lightens a plane’s load, the pilots reportedly declined, saying, “We’ve got it under control. … We’re not critical.”

Soon after, while the plane was approaching LAX and flying over neighborhoods near the airport, reports say the pilots jettisoned between 15,000 and 20,000 gallons of fuel, dousing tens of thousands of homes over a five-mile area. At least 56 people were treated for skin and lung irritations, but all injuries were minor and no one was hospitalized. The schools all closed for cleaning, but reopened the next day.

As part of mediation, both parties say they commissioned a “laboratory bench study to evaluate the persistence of total petroleum hydrocarbon concentrations in soil.” The study determined “no Jet A petroleum hydrocarbons were detectable after seven days.” That test, the parties say in their court filing, will “significantly mitigate the harm property owners might face if they disclosed the fact that their properties were hit by jettisoned fuel to prospective home buyers.”

Both parties agreed that one issue the plaintiffs may have faced had they taken their case to trial is that nothing distinguished the people who got hit with jet fuel from the people who didn’t — that is, there was little in the way of provable damages. In the court filing announcing the proposed settlement, the parties note that the “plaintiffs’ property owner damages theories have rested on largely untested legal arguments: that property owners would be entitled to have the top few inches of soil removed and replaced to get rid of a portion of the jet fuel contaminants that are admittedly below detectable levels or that property owners have a duty to disclose the fact that jettisoned fuel landed on the properties even though any amount that remains is undetectable.”

“Although jurors could agree with plaintiffs and their experts, they could also side with Delta and reject the notion that class members should be given money so that they can remove an undetectable amount of jet fuel residue and find persuasive Delta’s argument that, in practice, homes in the class area do not sell for less than those outside of it,” the parties go on to say. “Given this background, the $888.82 per property that property owners in the class would receive, assuming a 100% claim rate, is reasonable.”

In a written statement, plaintiffs’ attorney Filippo Marchino of the X-Law Group said: “The class plaintiffs are pleased that they were able to reach a fair and reasonable resolution for the class, who are owners or residents of approximately 38,000 properties affected by the Jan. 14, 2020, fuel jettison incident at issue. This settlement represents five years of intense and hard fought litigation, and brings very real recovery to the class members both in terms of monetary recovery, as well as non-monetary relief. We are especially pleased to obtain this result for residents of the southeast LA communities, comprised of hard-working families who asked only for respect and just treatment and rightly deserve this result.”

A number of lawsuits and class actions, including one filed by teachers, were consolidated into one case. In 2023, Delta’s motion for summary judgment was dismissed.

The case had been heavily litigated in the more than five years since it was filed. According to the court filing, the parties produced more than 418,000 pages of documents in discovery, took more than 50 depositions, and hired 20 experts.

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