Several defendants being sued over a 2023 fatal house explosion in Plum asked a judge Friday to dismiss negligence counts against them during a two-hour hearing heavy on legal citations.
Allegheny County Common Pleas Judge Philip A. Ignelzi did not rule from the bench.
The families of six people killed in the Aug. 12, 2023, explosion in Plum’s Rustic Ridge subdivision sued several companies earlier this year for negligence and wrongful death.
Defendants include Peoples Gas and Delmont-based Penneco Oil Co.
The 12 lawsuits — each of them leveling the same allegations — blamed the companies for the catastrophe and pinpointed the cause as a pipeline leak that filled the basement of Heather and Paul Oravitz’s home with flammable gas that ignited.
Another defendant is A.O. Smith Corp., the Milwaukee-based manufacturer of a water heater in the Oravitz home.
The lawsuits allege the there was an explosion risk if the water heater burned an external fuel source and that the company failed to notify consumers. Lawyers claim the gas line to the water heater was disconnected, but flammable vapors from outside the tank continued to fuel the appliance.
Attorney Mark Lane, who represents A.O. Smith, maintained Friday that his client is not liable for the victims’ deaths. He asked the judge to dismiss the claims against the company.
“There is no allegation that the burning of external fuel (in the water heater) caused this explosion,” Lane told Ignelzi during the virtual hearing. “The risk of explosion is that this house filled with gas for days, weeks and months.”
Jason Schiffman, who represents the families of the victims, countered that the water heater was defective because it did not warn homeowners about what strange noises coming from the appliance prior to the blast might mean.
After the gas was cut, according to the lawsuits, “a very loud, clanging, banging noise” could be heard. Those sounds, the attorneys claim, meant danger.
A.O Smith, Schiffman said, “understood that an explosion was likely.”
“There was a clear, clear example of knowledge,” added Dominic Guerrini, another attorney for the plaintiffs. “Everybody knows how dangerous gas is.”
Rodger Puz, a lawyer for Peoples Gas, pleaded with Ignelzi to throw out the claims against utility.
He tried to spotlight Penneco, which operated gas lines in and around Rustic Ridge.
Puz claimed Peoples had no responsibility to maintain infrastructure for a third party that produced energy for the utility company.
Ignelzi didn’t issue a ruling Friday on any of the defendants’ preliminary objections and did not indicate when he might.
Discovery in the lawsuits is slated to begin in January or February.
The explosion obliterated the Oravitzes’ home. Heather Oravitz, 51, Plum’s director of community development, died that day. Her 56-year-old husband, an ultrasound sonographer, died four days later.
Also killed on the day of the blast were four friends and neighbors who had been in the Oravitz home: Michael Thomas, 57, Plum’s borough manager; Kevin Sebunia, 55, a sales consultant; Casey Clontz, 38, who worked for Peoples; and his son, Keegan Clontz, 12.
Separate lawsuits were filed July 22 in court on behalf of the Oravitzes’ two adult children, Taylor and Cole, and Sebunia’s family.
They allege a failure to vent an overpressurized gas line or repair an “unchecked” leak from a 2.5-inch gash in an underground pipe led to the disaster, which destroyed three houses and damaged a dozen more.
The lawsuits also blamed Plum developer Grasinger Homes Inc. for selling and building homes in Rustic Ridge near three Penneco natural gas wells.
