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CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- The state Supreme Court has ordered a Mingo County judge with ties to Massey Energy to step down from hearing a major coal-slurry pollution case against the coal giant.

Acting Chief Justice Robin Davis cited the fact that Circuit Judge Michael Thornsbury had previously defended a Massey subsidiary in a blasting damages lawsuit brought by one of the residents now suing Massey in the slurry case.

Thornsbury had argued in papers filed with the Supreme Court that his defense of Massey in the blasting case was of "absolutely no relevance" to the slurry lawsuit.

But Davis noted that an expert witness for the residents has reported that blasting activities by Massey may be one cause of fractured underground strata that allowed slurry injected by the company to contaminate local drinking water.

In a two-page order signed Monday, Davis cited "the temporal and geographical relationship between the prior matter and the allegations and defenses in the current litigation."

Davis appointed Thomas C. Evans, a circuit judge from Jackson County, to take over the case. Trial had been scheduled for Oct. 20, but could be delayed by the appointment of a new judge.

"I'm very disappointed that we had to file this motion, but I can't tell you how encouraged I am that the Supreme Court has done the right thing and assigned the case to a new judge," said Kevin Thompson, lead lawyer for the residents suing Massey. "I assume this is going to slow the case down, but I would rather go slowly and get it done right."

Read the decision:  

CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- The state Supreme Court has ordered a Mingo County judge with ties to Massey Energy to step down from hearing a major coal-slurry pollution case against the coal giant.

Acting Chief Justice Robin Davis cited the fact that Circuit Judge Michael Thornsbury had previously defended a Massey subsidiary in a blasting damages lawsuit brought by one of the residents now suing Massey in the slurry case.

Thornsbury had argued in papers filed with the Supreme Court that his defense of Massey in the blasting case was of "absolutely no relevance" to the slurry lawsuit.

But Davis noted that an expert witness for the residents has reported that blasting activities by Massey may be one cause of fractured underground strata that allowed slurry injected by the company to contaminate local drinking water.

In a two-page order signed Monday, Davis cited "the temporal and geographical relationship between the prior matter and the allegations and defenses in the current litigation."

Davis appointed Thomas C. Evans, a circuit judge from Jackson County, to take over the case. Trial had been scheduled for Oct. 20, but could be delayed by the appointment of a new judge.

"I'm very disappointed that we had to file this motion, but I can't tell you how encouraged I am that the Supreme Court has done the right thing and assigned the case to a new judge," said Kevin Thompson, lead lawyer for the residents suing Massey. "I assume this is going to slow the case down, but I would rather go slowly and get it done right."

Since 2005, Thornsbury had presided over a case in which more than 750 Mingo County residents allege Massey subsidiary Rawl Coal Sales and Processing polluted their water when it disposed of coal slurry waste by injecting it underground.

In recent rulings, Thornsbury had denied the residents' motion to proceed as a class-action lawsuit and then gave the plaintiffs each just minutes to decide if they would accept or reject individual settlement offers made by Massey.

Last month, Thornsbury refused to voluntarily step down from the case. The judge denied allegations that he was friends with Massey President Don Blankenship. Thornsbury also denied accusations he was using the case to help a business partner -- a local doctor with ties to Massey -- profit from a medical monitoring program set up as part of the suit.

But the residents' lawyers filed a follow-up motion. This time, they outlined how Thornsbury, then in private practice, had in 1985 defended Rawl Sales in a blasting damage lawsuit filed against the company by a dozen residents including Raymond Fitch, who is a plaintiff in the current slurry lawsuit.

At the Supreme Court, Davis considered the recusal motion after Chief Justice Brent Benjamin recused himself from the case because it involved Massey.

The allegations of "cronyism" by Thornsbury came in the wake of a U.S. Supreme Court decision that Benjamin should have recused himself from a Massey case because Blankenship spent millions of dollars bankrolling Benjamin's election in 2004. In that same case, Justice Elliott Maynard was forced to recuse himself after photographs surfaced of him vacationing with Blankenship on the French Riviera.

Reach Ken Ward Jr. at kw...@wvgazette.com or 304-348-1702.