UGI To Pay $1 Million State Fine For Fatal Explosion As Ross Feller Casey Suit Continues

In a settlement with state regulators, UGI has agreed to pay a $1.1 million penalty for a home gas explosion in Lancaster County, Pa. that killed a utility worker and injured others in the summer of 2017.

In addition to the civil penalty, the natural gas supplier will also spend over $50 million to address problems highlighted by a state Public Utility Commission investigation.

Ross Feller Casey founding partner Matt Casey filed a lawsuit in 2018 on behalf of Kim Bouder, widow of UGI employee Richard Bouder, who was killed in the blast. Learn more about the lawsuit

Casey told LPN, a Lancaster newspaper, that while not an admission of guilt, the civil penalty supports a central element of the lawsuit – that a component attaching the natural gas line to the Millersville, Pa. home was defectively made.

UGI, under the agreement with the PUC, will build a training center to better educate employees and spend more than $3 million a year for the next four years to replace or repair the defective tees across its service area.

The settlement “further confirms that the … tees that were leaking gas were defective. And that is the reason that the PUC settlement requires UGI to replace them ...,” Casey told the paper. “UGI never would have been out there in the first place to replace (the tees) if they weren’t defective.”

The coronavirus pandemic has caused a case backlog in the courts, delaying the lawsuit's progress, Casey said.

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