WICHITA (AP) – The Kansas Supreme Court has reinstated a jury verdict finding residents of Neodesha are not entitled to recover the cleanup costs caused by an oil refinery owned by BP Corp.

The state’s high court on Friday overturned a judge’s ruling that threw out the verdict after one of the longest jury trials ever held in Kansas.

The judge who presided over the 17-week trial had overturned the verdict in 2008 after concluding he had given the jury improper instructions. He ruled the city was entitled to judgment in its favor as a matter of law.

But the Supreme Court said the issue before jurors was whether BP had done enough to clean up the pollution and ruled the disputed facts were a matter for jurors to decide.