LOGAN, W.Va. -- Massey Energy President Don Blankenship received mine-by-mine production reports every two hours and insisted on detailed memos on everything from conveyor belt breakdowns to parts inventories, a Logan County jury heard Friday.

Blankenship also made routine decisions about employee hiring and contractor pay, and bluntly scolded mine managers he felt didn't move coal fast enough, jurors learned as trial continued in the wrongful death case over the January 2006 Aracoma Alma No. 1 Mine fire.

Logan Circuit Court jurors heard from Blankenship via videotaped testimony, as Bruce Stanley, lawyer for the two Aracoma widows, worked to tie Blankenship personally to Massey practices that Stanley alleges put profits ahead of safety.

Families of miners Don Bragg and Ellery Hatfield sued Blankenship, along with mine operator Aracoma Coal Co. and parent firms A.T. Massey Coal Co. and Massey Energy. The widows are seeking monetary damages to compensate them and to punish Blankenship and the companies for the deaths. Massey is also facing $1.5 million in civil fines from federal regulators, and a federal criminal probe of the fire continues.

During opening arguments earlier in the week, Blankenship lawyer Tom Flaherty said his client sets corporate-wide policy, but should not be held responsible for safety problems at Aracoma.

"To say that Don Blankenship personally participated in the tragedy that befell these families is simply unfair," Flaherty said.

In a previously videotaped deposition, Stanley quizzed Blankenship about dozens of internal memos, in an effort to depict a hands-on management style so jurors would conclude the Massey president shares blame for the fatal fire.

In one memo, Blankenship decided whether to waive general Massey policy and hire three workers who didn't have high school diplomas. In another note, he personally approved a small raise in a contract firm's hourly rate of pay.

Blankenship testified that he receives faxed production reports from each Massey mine every two hours. Each day, he monitors separate profit-and-loss statements from every Massey mine, Blankenship said.

In memos shown to jurors, Blankenship demanded frequent updates on growing problems at Aracoma, including delays in moving the mine's advanced longwall machine and problems extending a key coal conveyor belt.

"If we're in a difficult situation, I'll get a little more communications than I will if the mine is running well," Blankenship said.

Blankenship testified he makes an average of $15 million a year, but does not know many details of Massey's corporate governance, such as whether some subsidiary boards have meetings or whether he is listed as an officer of subsidiary A.T. Massey Coal.

LOGAN, W.Va. -- Massey Energy President Don Blankenship received mine-by-mine production reports every two hours and insisted on detailed memos on everything from conveyor belt breakdowns to parts inventories, a Logan County jury heard Friday.

Blankenship also made routine decisions about employee hiring and contractor pay, and bluntly scolded mine managers he felt didn't move coal fast enough, jurors learned as trial continued in the wrongful death case over the January 2006 Aracoma Alma No. 1 Mine fire.

Logan Circuit Court jurors heard from Blankenship via videotaped testimony, as Bruce Stanley, lawyer for the two Aracoma widows, worked to tie Blankenship personally to Massey practices that Stanley alleges put profits ahead of safety.

Families of miners Don Bragg and Ellery Hatfield sued Blankenship, along with mine operator Aracoma Coal Co. and parent firms A.T. Massey Coal Co. and Massey Energy. The widows are seeking monetary damages to compensate them and to punish Blankenship and the companies for the deaths. Massey is also facing $1.5 million in civil fines from federal regulators, and a federal criminal probe of the fire continues.

During opening arguments earlier in the week, Blankenship lawyer Tom Flaherty said his client sets corporate-wide policy, but should not be held responsible for safety problems at Aracoma.

"To say that Don Blankenship personally participated in the tragedy that befell these families is simply unfair," Flaherty said.

In a previously videotaped deposition, Stanley quizzed Blankenship about dozens of internal memos, in an effort to depict a hands-on management style so jurors would conclude the Massey president shares blame for the fatal fire.

In one memo, Blankenship decided whether to waive general Massey policy and hire three workers who didn't have high school diplomas. In another note, he personally approved a small raise in a contract firm's hourly rate of pay.

Blankenship testified that he receives faxed production reports from each Massey mine every two hours. Each day, he monitors separate profit-and-loss statements from every Massey mine, Blankenship said.

In memos shown to jurors, Blankenship demanded frequent updates on growing problems at Aracoma, including delays in moving the mine's advanced longwall machine and problems extending a key coal conveyor belt.

"If we're in a difficult situation, I'll get a little more communications than I will if the mine is running well," Blankenship said.

Blankenship testified he makes an average of $15 million a year, but does not know many details of Massey's corporate governance, such as whether some subsidiary boards have meetings or whether he is listed as an officer of subsidiary A.T. Massey Coal.

In another memo, Blankenship offered a "final warning" to Massey group presidents who were shutting down mines or delaying coal shipments, and ordered them to "call me" if they thought they had a good reason for doing so.

"We've run out of ways to say this, but the company is being destroyed by people that get in the way of our shipments," Blankenship wrote. "They need to get out of the way."

Blankenship sat through about an hour of the morning testimony at the Logan County Courthouse, and Flaherty tried to convince Judge Roger Perry to allow him to testify in person. But Perry had previously agreed to Stanley's plan to show the video instead, a move that allowed Stanley more control over the presentation and avoided giving Blankenship a second crack at the questions. Blankenship may be called to testify in person during his defense.

With the jury out of the room, Aracoma Coal lawyer Niall<co > Paul objected to parts of the video presentation, especially Stanley's highlighting of portions of Massey documents that company lawyers had redacted.

"There is nothing nefarious about redacting documents," Paul said. "It happens all the time in litigation."

Perry allowed the video to continue, but instructed the jury to ignore references to the redactions.

During the video, Blankenship said that he could not recall how many workers had been killed at Massey operations since the company was spun off from Fluor Corp. in 2000. Blankenship also said that he didn't know if Massey ever completed a "root cause analysis" study of the Aracoma fire or what such a report might have concluded.

Among the memos shown to jurors was one that noted Aracoma's accident rate in the months before the fire was nearly three times worse than other Massey operations. In another memo, Blankenship asked the company's safety director to write a report for him on how many of Massey's recent accidents were the fault of the workers who were injured.

Blankenship bragged about Massey's "S-1" safety program. He said it involved actually improving equipment and designing safety procedures, compared to other industry safety efforts that focus on slogans and signs.

But Blankenship said the program involves safety guidelines, and not firm rules that Massey operations are required by the parent corporation to follow.

"I would say that it's a goal, because it's almost impossible to require full compliance with everything you deal with in the mining business," Blankenship said.

@tag:Reach Ken Ward Jr. at kw...@wvgazette.com or 348-1702.