Provost Umphrey Attorney, Zona Jones, Co-Counsel in City of West Fertilizer Explosion Lawsuit

BEAUMONT, Texas, June 27, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- The City of West, Texas has filed a lawsuit against Illinois-based CF Industries, the company that supplied ammonium nitrate to Adair Grain, or West Fertilizer Company, the site of the April fertilizer plant explosion that killed 15 and injured more than 160 people. The lawsuit is pending in the 170th Judicial District Court of McClennan County, Texas and was filed by trial lawyers  Zona Jones of Provost Umphrey, L.L.P. in Beaumont, and Steve Harrison of Harrison, Davis, Steakley, Morrison, P.C. in Waco, Texas. 

In part, the petition states, "The CF Industries defendants knew of the dangers associated with the manufacture and use of ammonium nitrate and failed in their duty to exercise care commensurate with, and proportionate to, the combined danger of formulating, designing, manufacturing, supplying and/or marketing of ammonium nitrate. The City of West alleges "CF Industries supplied West Fertilizer Company with ammonium nitrate that did not contain an additive/coating that would have prevented the ammonium nitrate from detonating/exploding". Further, "CF Industries failed and/or refused to properly inspect the fertilizer mixing facility on the outskirts of West, Texas, to determine if hazard mitigation was needed to provide recommendations for safe storage of ammonium nitrate."  

"Instead, they blindly sold the hundreds of tons of hazardous ammonium nitrate to West Fertilizer Company and delivered it to a facility located within a community of people, houses, parks, schools and a nursing home, as stated in the city's lawsuit," the petition states.

Zona Jones practices personal injury and commercial litigation and consumer class action at Provost Umphrey Law Firm in Beaumont, Texas. He is certified in Personal Injury Trial Law by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization.

For more than forty years, Provost Umphrey's mission has remained to seek justice for those suffering from a personal injury, wrongful death or other legal wrong across Texas and nationwide through their lawyers in Beaumont and Houston, Little Rock, Arkansas and Nashville, Tennessee.

SOURCE Provost Umphrey Law Firm