Kansas City, Mo. ? Would you demand a discount on an attractive house because it’s in a county where disaster once struck? What if the disaster happened 10 miles away and three years ago? How about 30 miles and four years?

Now suppose you’re told that the peril — natural gas, capable of erupting in flaming geysers — might still lurk underground. Has every piece of property in the county lost value? And should someone have to make it up to the owners?

Those are the questions that lawyers for all 26,000 private property owners and all business owners in Reno County, Kan., want to ask a jury in the largest lawsuit over deadly gas explosions that hit Hutchinson in January 2001.

Now awaiting a trial date in Kansas City, Kan., the class-action lawsuit seeks $90 million for the “stigma” of danger it claims has lowered property values throughout Reno County — even those far outside the damage and evacuation zones.

Claims for “stigma damages” are a fairly new tactic in property value lawsuits around the country, popping up mostly when owners can’t prove that a polluting substance actually touched their land.

‘No practical limit’

And it’s a maneuver that energy company ONEOK Inc. and other defendants in the Reno County case hope to defeat.

“Virtually every jurisdiction that has considered the question has refused to permit such actions for good reason,” lawyers for ONEOK wrote in a motion asking Reno County District Judge Richard Rome to throw out the lawsuit.

If defendants in property cases must pay damages simply because a piece of property gets a bad reputation, the lawyers wrote, “there would be no practical limit on the number of people who might bring suit over any incident involving land.” Rome denied the motion and, on the eve of trial in early June, ordered the case moved to Wyandotte County for trial.

A firefighter walks past the charred ice-covered remains of two buildings destroyed by a natural gas explosion in Hutchinson, in this file photo from Jan. 20, 2001. A class-action lawsuit brought by 26,000 private property owners in and around Hutchinson is seeking 0 million from ONEOK Inc., owners of the gas facility, for stigma

ONEOK, based in Tulsa, Okla., was sued as the owner and operator of Yaggy Field, a complex of underground salt caverns seven miles northwest of Hutchinson where the corporation stored natural gas.

The lawsuit claims that irresponsible actions by ONEOK and its subsidiaries allowed 143 million cubic feet of natural gas to leak from a cavern several hundred feet underground and rapidly seep toward Hutchinson, where it shot up through abandoned wells beneath the city.

A mighty blast shook downtown Hutchinson the morning of Jan. 17, 2001, destroying two stores and leaving other nearby buildings in flames.

Geysers of gas 30 feet high erupted within hours, forcing hundreds of people out of southeast Hutchinson for several days. The downtown leak was being burned off when another explosion, on Jan. 18, killed a couple at a mobile home park.

While crews raced to locate and cap the leak at Yaggy Field, vents were dug on the city’s outskirts to relieve the underground buildup of gas. Investigations by geologists followed — as did lawsuits, naming various combinations of ONEOK and two subsidiaries, Kansas Gas Service and Mid-Continent Market Center.

Previous settlements

ONEOK, without admitting a link between the Yaggy Field leak and the explosions, reached a confidential settlement in August 2002 with relatives of the couple killed at the Big Chief Mobile Home Park.

A jury in Sedgwick County District Court this year awarded owners of the two downtown businesses $1.7 million for their losses. Evidence included testimony that ONEOK’s computers showed a loss of pressure at Yaggy Field three days before the explosion — and that ONEOK responded by pumping in more gas.

Sedgwick County District Judge James Fleetwood added $5.25 million in punitive damages, opining that pursuit of profits drove the defendants “to ignore imminent dangers arising from the abandonment of sound operating principles.”

Just days later, on April 13, Cargill Inc. settled with ONEOK and a subsidiary. Cargill had sued over the January 2001 shutdown of its Hutchinson salt plant in the days after the explosions.