Post-Gazette asks court to unseal Haney shale gas case settlement
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette is seeking to unseal the confidential settlement of a high-profile court case in which Stacey Haney and her neighbors allege their health was damaged by toxic spills, leaks and air pollutants from a Range Resources Appalachia LLC shale gas well site in Amwell, Washington County.
Attorney Frederick Frank, representing the PostGazette, filed an emergency petition Monday with Judge Michael J. Lucas in Washington County Common Pleas Court to intervene and unseal the settlement in that sixyear-long case filed in 2012.
Following a brief hearing on the motion Thursday morning, Judge Lucas scheduled arguments for 1 p.m. Feb. 25 on both the newspaper’s request to intervene and whether to unseal the settlement terms.
The case — which also alleged that Range and two commercial water-testing laboratories conspired to conceal the presence of hazardous contaminants in the water supplies of residents living near the company’s Yeager well site — was settled, sealed and closed in September 2018.
Range attorney Kimberly Brown raised several procedural questions at Thursday’s hearing, including that the Post-Gazette had not entered its objections to the sealed settlement in a timely manner, before the case was closed.
Mr. Frank noted that Range made an identical argument in an unsuccessful attempt to block the newspaper from accessing the 2011 confidential settlement in the Hallowich case. That settlement agreement, restored to the public record of the case in 2013, shows that the Hallowich family was paid $750,000 but was prohibited from living within two miles of any Marcellus Shale gas facility, barred from objecting to any drilling under any new property or residence they may own, and prevented from speaking disparagingly about gas industry operations.
“The Superior Court ruled in the Hallowich case the public has the right to intervene at any time to unseal the record,” Mr. Frank said.
Mr. Frank argued in his 13-page brief to the court and at the hearing that the press, as a representative of the public, has an important role in protecting the openness of court proceedings. He also said that Range had not overcome the constitutional presumption that court proceedings and documents should be publicly accessible. Ms. Haney has also filed a motion asking the Washington County court for a protective order seeking to unseal the settlement documents so she can reference them in a separate but related damage case she is pursuing in the Allegheny County Common Pleas Court. The hearing Thursday was originally scheduled to deal with her motion to strike a supplemental filing by Range opposing the protective order.
In the Allegheny County case, Ms. Haney alleges that the Washington County settlement was adversely affected by the unauthorized sharing of her health records in violation of the federal HIPAA law mandating confidentiality of such records.
The Post-Gazette learned of the settlement last week while reporting that state Attorney General Josh Shapiro has empaneled a grand jury to investigate potential “environmental crimes” committed by the oil and gas industry in Washington County. The attorney general sent a letter to attorneys representing Ms. Haney and Range that referenced the “Stacey Haney/Range Resources Investigation” and requested that the case record be preserved, under penalty of law.
The story of Ms. Haney and her family, including their health problems, was chronicled in a book, “Amity and Prosperity: One Family and the Fracturing of America,” by Eliza Griswold, which was among The New York Times critics’ top books of 2018.