‘Courts will protect them,’ lawyer vows

A Caln couple have successfully sued the operators of the pipeline, Columbia Gas Transmission, because of stormwater runoff problems and sinkholes they attributed to the reconstruction of a natural gas pipeline through their property

On June 28, a federal jury hearing the case of Scott and Kerstin Marcum returned with guilty verdicts against the pipeline operators for negligence, trespass, and violations of the state Storm Water Management Act and awarded the couple $850,000 in total damages.

The couple, who filed the lawsuit in Chester County Common Pleas Court in 2018 after having dealt with the runoff problems for years only to see the company have the case moved to U.S. District Court in Philadelphia in 2019, have asked the court to award them an additional $142,120 in so-called “delay damages,” bringing the total award involved to $942,000.

The jury in U.S. District Judge Wendy Beetlestone’s courtroom heard the case over six days before returning with the verdict against the company and its subsidiaries after deliberating for fewer than two hours, according to the Marcum’s attorney, Joseph P. Green Jr. of West Chester.

“It is important for residents affected by pipeline construction to know that the courts will protect them,” said Green, who has handled a number of cases involving homeowners in the county whose properties have been damaged because of pipeline construction issues.

“If the pipeline operators cause harm, the courts will ensure that the operators bear the costs of that harm,” Green said last week in an e-mail. “The litigation process can be long and difficult. This dispute dates from 2015. But if residents take to the courts to assert their rights the operators will have a real incentive to reduce the harm they cause.”

A call to the lead attorney for Columbia, Francis J. Grey Jr. of the Philadelphia law firm Ricci Tyrell Johnson & Grey, was not immediately returned Tuesday.

Chester County is home to as many as 16 pipeline transporting a number of different fuels, including natural gas. Columbia is one of 10 individual operators that own the pipeline in the county; its two lines run from the Delaware state line to Thorndale

and along the Route 30 corridor across the central part of the county.

Over the past several years, many residents have complained about property issues caused by pipeline

constriction, most notably the appearance of sinkholes cause by the Mariner East II construction projects completed by the Energy Transfer company for Sunoco.

The Marcum’s home is located in along a street in Caln just outside of Downingtown, where homes were constructed in the early 1990s and early 2000s and are valued around $350,000. The couple’s suit contends that in reconstruction of the pipeline through their rear and side yards in 2015, Columbia destroyed a pre-existing water control feature, increasing the runoff of stormwater and damaging their home.

Despite numerous attempts to have the company remediate the stormwater problems and help them with damages to their homes, the company took no action, according to a pre-trial memorandum filed in court explaining the case.

According to Scott Marcus at the property, saw the problem, acknowledged its existence, and promised to get back to him. “He never heard from (the man) again,” the memo states, “while the runoff damage continued.”

The first sinkholes appeared on the property in February 2018, and continued to grow through the year even as Columbia “refused to take action,” according to the memo. He filed suit in April 2018, and the pipeline compnay eventually began repair work on the sinkholes. It made no effort, however, to correct the storm runoff problems and drainage issues

the Marcum’s contend it caused.

In its own pre-trial memo, the Columbia attorneys denied that the new construction in 2015 had caused any water runoff problems, and that its plans had been reviewed by state and local authorities dealing with runoff. Its experts, the memo said, would testify that there was no negligence on the company’s

part. It also said it had repair the sinkholes that developed, but that those had not developed because of any stormwater runoff issues.