Gas Utility Settles for $19.2 Million After Improperly Capped Line Kills Three Members of One Family in Elizabeth Explosion

Just before 8 a.m. on November 11, 2015, a natural gas explosion tore through a multi-family house at 1035 Magnolia Avenue in Elizabeth, New Jersey. The blast collapsed the second floor onto the first, trapping members of the Henderson family inside a home that housed more than a dozen residents. Investigators later traced the cause to a gas line behind the garage that had not been properly capped after a dryer was removed from an illegally converted apartment on the property.

Six family members suffered severe burns. Three did not survive. Kimiya Henderson, 26, died in early December 2015. Her sister Tavasha Henderson, 36, died in early January 2016. Their 11-year-old brother died later that same month. All three deaths came weeks or months after the explosion, from injuries suffered that morning. A fourth person, a 24-year-old man who lived on the second floor and was not part of the family, was killed in the blast itself.

The surviving family members, along with the estates of the three who died, sued NUI Corp., the parent company operating as Elizabethtown Gas, and the property's owner, Abel Brito. The plaintiffs argued the utility bore responsibility for the leak that fed the explosion. NUI denied liability in its answer, pointing instead to the plaintiffs' own conduct. David Mazie, David Freeman and Matthew Mendelsohn of Mazie Slater Katz & Freeman represented the Hendersons against defense counsel that included Lowenstein Sandler's David Field for NUI.

The case resolved in mediation before retired judge Mark Epstein rather than at trial. On February 11, 2019, Union County Superior Court Judge Mark Ciarrocca approved a $19.2 million settlement, with Elizabethtown Gas's parent responsible for $18.95 million and Brito responsible for $250,000. Court papers divided the net recovery, after attorney fees, funeral expenses and Medicaid liens, among six claims: 10 percent to Jennie Henderson individually, 12.5 percent each to Tyeashia Henderson and to an infant relative through his guardian, 20 percent to the 11-year-old boy's estate, 20 percent to Kimiya's estate, and 25 percent to Tavasha's estate, each estate split between a wrongful death share and a survival share.

Ciarrocca's order approved Mazie Slater Katz & Freeman's fee at 29 percent of the gross recovery above the threshold set by New Jersey's court rule on contingent fees, capped at 25 percent for the infant claimant's individual claim, after finding the case had been vigorously litigated against sophisticated defense counsel including two national law firms. No appeal followed the court-approved settlement. David Mazie said afterward that the money would let the surviving family members try to move past what he called a tragic accident that had torn the family apart.