This Information is dated: 2002 Alcoa puts damper on residents' claims PAT ROXBOROUGH, Observer court writer Thursday, January 17, 2002 ALCOA, the bauxite company in Clarendon that was, in 1994, ordered to pay just under $1 million for the damage its mining operations did to the house of a resident in the nearby Hayes community, has made it clear that it has no intention of settling an additional 59 claims without a fight. Consequentially, the 59 residents who relied on Broderick's case as a test and, in the wake of the victory he scored, had been anticipating a settlement of their own, now face the possibility of having to prove, one by one, that the damage to their houses was done by Alcoa. Alcoa's stance, revealed in court on Monday through the company's lawyer, John Vassell, has dismayed the residents as Broderick's case, which was filed in the Supreme Court almost 12 years ago on April 9, 1990, spent 10 years travelling through the legal system. During that time, the law firm of Gaynair and Fraser went to considerable expense to collate the detailed scientific evidence which satisfied the court that pollutants, noxious gasses and corrosive dust emitted from the company's smelting plant wrecked the roof of Broderick's house. The case ended on March 20, 2000 when the United Kingdom Privy Council, Jamaica's highest legal authority, ordered the company to pay up the $938,400 that Supreme Court judge, Neville Theobalds, ordered them to pay on February 15, 1995, after hearing the case the year before. However, Maurice Frankson, the attorney representing the residents, is planning to ask the court to order that the matter be set down for a damage assessment hearing. Frankson's request, which is based on the rationale that the local appellate court and subsequently the United Kingdom Privy Council gave when they dismissed the company's appeal against the order to pay, will be made on January 28, February 4, February 18, February 25 and March 11 when the various subsets of the group of residents are scheduled to attend court.