Widows Of Men Killed At Wynnewood Refinery File Suit

Nearly a year after a boiler explosion killed two workers at the Wynnewood refinery, the widows of the two victims sue the company. And OSHA says that company is responsible for the deaths.

LeeAnna Mann and her 45-year-old husband Russell were high school sweethearts and had been married 27 years. Russell died while lighting the boiler at the Wynnewood plant on Sept. 28 of last year. Leanna says her husband's dead because the fat-cat company he worked for is cheap.

From her home in Davis, eight miles south of the Wynnewood refinery, LeeAnna Mann did not hold back her anger at Texas-based CVR, the company that runs the Wynnewood Refinery, a refinery that insisted on using an outdated 60-year-old boiler, a boiler that had caused problems for years. Mann's attorney says the boiler exploded while 45-year-old Russell and 35-year-old Billy Smith were trying to light it. 

Smith died in the blast. Russell Mann hung on for a few weeks.

OSHA fined CVR nearly $300,000, which Mann's attorney says is merely a slap on the wrist for a company that he says makes a million of dollars a day.

The Mann lawsuit asks for damages of at least $5 million dollars. When OSHA dinged CVR for those violations this past April, the company released a statement that said employee and contractor safety remains its number-one priority.