By: Danny Jacobs

After four months and hundreds of witnesses, the Jacksonville plaintiffs have rested their case against Exxon Mobil Corp. stemming from a massive 2006 gasoline leak.

I popped into the courtroom in Towson on Thursday morning and found Judge Robert N. Dugan hearing Exxon Mobil’s motions to dismiss the case. He denied a defense motion to dismiss the fraud count while I was there. In the process, he inquired about something that he has been wondering about since the beginning of the trial.

Much has been made by plaintiffs in this trial and the previous one about a sign placed outside the gas station soon after the leak was discovered notifying residents the station was being “remodeled.”

“It’s inconceivable Exxon intended to deceive anyone with the sign,” Tom Dundon, one of the companies lawyers, said Thursday as he began to argue the motion to dismiss the fraud count.

Dugan, who can be animated from the bench, was clearly startled by the assertion.

“Why is that?” he said, his voice going up an octave or two as residents in the courtroom laughed.

Dundon said Exxon had already alerted the Maryland Department of the Environment about the leak. Dugan wasn’t buying it.

“Why not put up a sign that said ‘Danger’?” he asked.

“That would have been better,” Dundon conceded, “but it’s the plaintiff that has the burden of proof.”

John Griffith, Dundon’s colleague, gave it another try.

“Why would Exxon put up that sign after notifying MDE?” he asked. “There’s no benefit for the defendant to put up a sign that is at odds with what it told MDE.”

Paul Raschke, one of the plaintiffs’ lawyers with The Law Offices of Peter G. Angelos, suggested Exxon purposely put up the sign to give it a few extra days to develop a game plan for responding to the leak.

“From day one, it’s been about controlling information, keeping real estate prices up … managing MDE, an understaffed MDE,” he said.

Who was responsible for the sign is not known by either side. Ted Flerlage, the plaintiffs’ lawyer, said he had asked several people in deposition but no one knew. Dugan, who asked the question several times during arguments Thursday, said he had a suspicion from opening statements that jurors would not be receiving information about the sign’s origin.

“No one knows where the sign came from,” he said, lingering on his words for emphasis. “That’s an amazing fact.”