First suit filed in Sierra Chemical explosion

Friday, May 15, 1998 | 9:17 a.m.

The action filed by a group including the widow of one of four workers killed in the Jan. 7 explosion claims that the company preferred to hire Hispanic workers who were less likely to complain about dangerous conditions because of their poor English.

The suit also said many of the workers were undocumented and feared deportation.

Company lawyer Bruce Laxalt called the allegations absurd.

"Sierra Chemical had an experienced and knowledgeable work force at a plant with a 25-year safety record," he told the Reno Gazette-Journal. "The mere fact that many of these employees did not speak English does not detract from that record.

Along with the four who were killed, six workers were injured in the powerful explosion that leveled the plant near Interstate-80, 12 miles east of here.

State officials have detailed 43 safety violations. Company representatives charge investigators did a shoddy job and pledged to appeal $1 million in state fines.

Investigators have said the most probable cause of the explosion was a worker who turned on a motor for a mixing blade unaware that an explosive mix had been left in a melting pot from the night before.

The lawsuit was filed on Thursday against Sierra Chamical and its president, Stanley Kinder, by Xochital Corral Garcia Santana, whose husband Alberto Jacobo Acosta was killed, and by two other Sierra Chemical workers and two workers from a neighboring business.