Belli Files New Suits Over Chemical Fire, Drops Class Action

San Francisco lawyer Melvin M. Belli filed a new round of lawsuits Thursday against the Larry Fricker Co. and the City of Anaheim over a June chemical fire after deciding to drop an earlier $100-million class-action lawsuit and send those clients instead to small claims court.

In the three new Orange County Superior Court lawsuits, three Anaheim residents and a former resident claim they suffered lung and other pulmonary injuries from inhaling fumes during a fire that started June 22 at the agricultural supply warehouse.

The four plaintiffs contend that burning fertilizers and pesticides gave off noxious and toxic fumes for a four-day period at the Fricker warehouse on State College Boulevard. The fire has been ruled an arson case that remains unsolved.

The lawsuits against Fricker and the city are the first of about three-dozen individual lawsuits that Belli’s office plan to file in the next few weeks, Belli associate Howard E. Hirsch of Los Angeles said.

Class Action Withdrawn

The $100-million class action filed June 26 will be withdrawn, Hirsch said, because a survey of “20 to 22 people” in the area of Anaheim, Fullerton and Placentia where 7,500 residents were evacuated indicated that “most suffered losses of inconvenience, of displacement.”

Those kinds of losses are simply out-of-pocket expenses, such as lost wages and temporary lodging, and can be recovered in small claims actions that the residents must file themselves, he said. Lawyers cannot by law represent clients in small claims court, which handles disputes involving damages up to $1,500.

Hirsch also charged that Fricker and the city were withholding information on exactly what hazardous chemicals were stored at the warehouse.

“We want Anaheim to explain what was in there so some of these people who were injured can tell their doctors and get proper treatment,” he said.

But Fricker lawyer Peter C. Freeman said Hirsch’s charge was “patently untrue.”

Information Available

“We’re not in the business of providing everyone in the world, including Fricker’s competitors, with what we have,” Freeman said, “but if someone comes to me and claims an injury, I can release that information to them.”

Anaheim Mayor Pro Tem E. Llewellyn Overholt Jr. said information on the chemicals stored at Fricker was available through the Fire Department.

Freeman said that claims of injuries from inhaling dangerous compounds were “speculative” and added that tests by public agencies did not find a significant amount of fumes that could have caused injury.

But Christine Young, 28, of Riverside charges in her lawsuit that she was hospitalized with chemical pneumonia and may have suffered permanent pulmonary damages after inhaling the fumes while she was living at her former home near the Fricker warehouse.

Oscar Yffert, 45, and his wife, Elizabeth, of Anaheim contend that they were hospitalized after suffering fainting spells, nausea and other flu-like symptoms from inhaling the fumes. The Yfferts continue to require medical attention, Freeman said.

And James Anderson of Anaheim also blames the fumes for injuries similar to those claimed by the Yfferts’.

The new suits seek unspecified general and punitive damages from Fricker and the city.

The suits claim Fricker is liable not only because it negligently stored the chemicals but because it simply stores dangerous materials and must pay when those materials injure others.

The suits accuse the city of failing to inspect, maintain and control the storage of dangerous substances by companies operating within in its boundaries.

Meantime, Paul L. Etzold, Fricker owner and president, said that business is “back to normal.”

But he is handling deliveries and sales--mainly with growers, golf courses and other large consumers of fertilizers and pesticides--out of his home and from a smaller Fricker warehouse in San Luis Rey in San Diego County, Freeman said.

Warehouse Being Reconstructed

The lawyer said Fricker is reconstructing its Anaheim warehouse with approval from the proper authorities, though he recognized that neighbors had complained about the operation.

“We have green lights all the way,” he said about the reconstruction.

Beside the suits filed by the Belli offices, a $500-million suit filed by four other residents forced to evacuate the area is pending.

In 1981, when Fricker was located in Tustin, more than 1,800 Tustin-area residents were evacuated when 3,800 gallons of phosphoric acid leaked from a storage tank. Last February, the Orange County district attorney’s office sued Fricker for $1.6 million, accusing the firm of illegally handling and disposing of toxic materials.

Times staff writer Kristina Lindgren contributed to this article.