The hundreds of coal ash cleanup personnel suing a Tennessee Valley Authority contractor won a key victory Wednesday when a federal appeals court docket refused to allow for the organization to protect itself from a lawsuit that asserts employees ended up sickened, and in some scenarios died, from the work.
Jacobs Engineering was the sitewide protection contractor hired by TVA to deal with the substantial operation to clear up the spill, which dumped 5.4 million cubic yards of coal ash throughout 300 acres around the Kingston coal-fired electrical power plant in December 2008.
The 6th U.S. Circuit Court docket of Appeals turned down Jacobs Engineering’s claim that it was entitled to the similar immunity TVA would have had as a federal company, saying TVA would not have experienced immunity, both.
The court docket, in its opinion reviewed by Knox News, wrote that “Jacobs concedes that it is immune from fit