Suits filed in fatal accident involving steel coil

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Updated: February 20, 2012 9:07AM

VALPARAISO — Attorneys have filed two lawsuits against local branches of steel manufacturer ArcelorMittal in Burns Harbor and ADS Logistics transportation company in Chesterton.

The lawsuits, filed Jan. 5 and Jan. 6 in Porter County Court, stem from a truck accident in southern Indiana that caused at least two deaths in January 2010.

Both suits name ADS, as well as truck driver Israel Rankin, truck owner Kendall Transportation and Reitnouer Inc., which apparently made the restraints that held a 43,960-pound steel coil on the truck.

The Jan. 5 suit names ArcelorMittal and Ohio River Metal Services/Eagle Steel Products of Kentucky.

According to the lawsuits, ADS loaded the coil on to the flatbed trailer that Rankin drove on Jan. 11, 2010, in the ADS warehouse.

It was bound for Eagle’s warehouse in Jeffersonville, Ind.

While Rankin and the truck traveled south on Indiana 37 in Orange County, Ind., near French Lick and south of the Lawrence County line, a tie-down device from Reitnouer broke.

The coil hit a northbound vehicle driven by Zachary Staggs and killed Shannon R. Steele of Indiana. It also hit the vehicle driven by Michael G. Daugherty of Lawrence County, killing him.

A spokesman for ArcelorMittal said the company could not comment on the lawsuits. No one at ADS was reached for comment. The two southern Indiana lawyers who’d filed the suits did not return calls.