Four years after an explosion and fire at Rouse Polymerics caused the deaths of five workers, lawsuits and bankruptcy proceedings appear within months of being resolved.

A three-week jury trial in Warren County Circuit Court is set to begin in January and a plan to dissolve the company is expected to be complete this summer.

The sudden disaster at the rubber-recycling facility off U.S. 61 South occurred shortly after 6 p.m. on May 16, 2002.

The plant was in operation and about 20 employees were working. Of 12 employees who received burns, five perished within a day to two weeks.

Those who died were Tywane Croskey, 24, of Port Gibson; John Davenport, 27, of Vicksburg; Roy Deaton, 50, of Vicksburg; Alfred Harrison, 42, of Tallulah; and Teddy Smith, 40, of Vicksburg.

Litigation has been wide-ranging, widely dispersed and settlements have been subject to non-disclosure agreements.

The remaining trial has been set by Judge Frank Vollor to be heard Jan. 29-Feb. 16. It involves claims against 10 companies whose products or services Rouse used. Rouse Polymerics and its owner, Michael Rouse, are among those who have been dismissed as defendants in the case.

The company ground and dried scrap rubber for use in new tires and other products.

Vicksburg attorney Paul Kelly Loyacono has been appointed to coordinate the lawsuits on behalf of those suing the companies and attorney David Kaufman of Jackson has been appointed to serve in the same role for the companies being sued.

At least one company, PPG Industries Inc., has also been added to the list of defendants, Loyacono said. That company makes a fine powder that Rouse used to help separate particles of ground-up rubber. Its product kept fine rubber particles airborne longer than the material Rouse used before it, Loyacono added.

Nearly all of those who were burned in the fire were taken to The Burn Center at Delta Regional Medical Center in Greenville, where some spent months. That facility has since been closed due to lack of funding.

When the Rouse Polymerics facility exploded the company employed nearly 100 people. Michael Rouse vowed that his company would rebuild and Rouse Polymerics resumed at least pilot production of a scaled-back or different process during the two years after the fire.

Rouse filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and has basically been &#8220in a liquidation mode” the last four years, attorney J. Walter Newman IV of Jackson said.

A final plan to liquidate the company is set to be confirmed by a judge this summer, Newman said.

Michael Rouse has moved to the Pacific Northwest, said his daughter, Julie Johnson.

A company owned by Johnson and her husband, Wesley Johnson, now operates in a separate building from the one where the explosion occurred. The building is on 19 acres that was owned by Rouse and is adjacent to the property where the shell of the facility stood in May 2002.

The company, called Specialty Elastomer Recovery Inc., was founded in Valley Park in 1995, Wesley Johnson said.

Each of SERI’s customers receives finished product recycled from raw material it furnishes, Johnson said. SERI’s raw material and products are used in cars and trucks for parts like rubber O-rings.

&#8220Everything is nonflammable and self-extinguishing,” Johnson said of SERI’s process.

Before the fire Rouse Polymerics had been cited by the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration for housekeeping and electrical violations. OSHA investigated for months following the fire and found no specific cause for the explosion. The report did say that the problems or practices like the ones that led to those violations contributed to the cause.

Robert Wilkins of Jackson, who works with Loyacono, said the plaintiffs’ experts’ opinions of what caused the fire were to be filed with the Warren County Circuit Clerk’s Office today.

A separate claim filed by Loyacono that alleged Michael Rouse and other company officers destroyed evidence relevant to the victims’ lawsuits was dismissed by Judge Johnny Price following a Mississippi Supreme Court ruling in a similar case since the explosion, Loyacono said.

A separate suit filed by Rouse Polymerics’ neighbor to the west, U.S. Rubber Reclaiming Inc., in 2003 has since been transferred to and from federal court and remains pending in Warren County Circuit Court.