Club Fire Tragedy
Shell Named As Defendant In Federal Club Fire Case
PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) _ A federal judge has allowed an attorney representing nightclub fire survivors and the wife of a man killed in the blaze to add Shell Oil as a defendant.
Shell Oil and its affiliate, Motiva Enterprises LLC, are named as joint enterprise defendants.
Ronald Resmini, who filed the lawsuit in federal court last month, said he's including Shell because the nightclub owners also ran a Shell gas station from which they distributed tickets to the
club.
``They were giving away free tickets if you bought so much
merchandise,'' Resmini said.
A Shell spokesman would not immediately comment on the lawsuit, but when Resmini sought to add Shell to the suit last week, spokesman Shawn Frederick said the company believes it should not be named and will defend itself.
While Shell is named, the company will not be served with the lawsuit immediately, Resmini said.
Only four groups of defendants _ the club owners, Anheuser-Busch, Inc., the town of West Warwick, and American Foam, the distributors of the foam used as soundproofing in the club _
will be served now.
Resmini said he's beginning with those groups so that questions of jurisdiction can be resolved.
Resmini filed the suit in federal court, and said West Warwick and Anheuser-Busch want the suit to remain there. The club owners and the foam company have indicated they want the case in state
court.
The Feb. 20 fire that killed 100 people and injured nearly 200 others began when sparks from a band's pyrotechnics ignited foam on the club's walls.
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