In Reason, Ronald Bailey fact-checks the New York Times on the purported environmental catastrophe near Buffalo that touched off a hundred copycat toxic-tort episodes as well as the federal Superfund program (Mar. 24).
Posts Tagged ‘environment’
Arizona wildlife: when in doubt, take it out
Arizona court decisions have recently eroded the state’s historical immunity from being sued over the actions of wild animals, and wildlife managers have been hit with two big liability payouts: a $2.5 million settlement for a girl mauled by a bear, and a $3 million jury verdict payable to a motorist whose vehicle struck an elk. Tucson attorney Mick Rusing, who defended the state in the bear case, says the cases influenced a recent decision to order mountain lions hunted in Sabino Canyon. “The default position of Game and Fish is now, ‘When in doubt, take it out,’ ” Rusing said. “If the courts and the Legislature are not going to protect these agencies and the people who make the decisions, that’s the way it’s going to be.” Rusing drafted a bill that would have provided immunity to game managers but the bill died “after trial lawyers opposed it and the Game and Fish Commission declined to support it.” (Tom Beal, “Bear, elk lawsuits influence lion hunt”, Arizona Daily Star (Tucson), Mar. 13)
The un-Brockovich
Little-known Beverly Hills reporter Norma Zager may be making herself the number one nemesis of glamourpuss toxic-tort-chaser Erin Brockovich-Ellis. Zager, who is with the Beverly Hills Courier, has tenaciously dug into the facts surrounding Brockovich’s and employer Edward Masry’s wild charges about supposed contamination at Beverly Hills High School (see Jan. 3 and links from there, and our Oct. 2000 treatment). (Eric Umansky, “Muckraker 90210: A Most Unlikely Reporter Nails Erin Brockovich”, Columbia Journalism Review — now there’s a magazine we haven’t often had a chance to quote favorably–, Mar./Apr.).
Menace of dihydrogen monoxide
We warned them again and again, and now the California town of Aliso Viejo has moved to take action against this environmental horror. (“SoCal city falls victim to Internet hoax, considers banning items made with water”, AP/San Jose Mercury News, Mar. 14).
Oh, working for them
Two years ago we noted that the Environmental Working Group, a frequent source of anti-business stories in the press, seemed to be rather deeply involved with the litigation biz (see May 23, 2001). The group more recently has come in for sharp criticism from the conservative Capital Research Center (Bonner R. Cohen, “The Environmental Working Group: Peddlers of Fear”, Jan.) (PDF)(mentions this site) and from the American Tort Reform Association (also mentions this site).
Looking over EWG’s website recently, we noticed a page dated Nov. 17 of last year on the MTBE liability controversy (on which, see Nov. 25). It seems EWG took out big ads in Roll Call and The Hill calling for oil companies to be held liable for underwater spread of the gasoline additive (sample ad in PDF format, linked from Nov. 17 page). On EWG’s own webpage (see bottom of left column) appears the following notice: “Advertisements paid for by Association of Trial Lawyers of America (ATLA)”. Curiously, that reader advisory didn’t appear in the sample ad itself. Wasn’t there room to fit it in?
And today EWG released a report that echoes the major assertions of the plaintiff’s trial bar on the topic of asbestos, and adds some controversial claims of its own, including a claim that deaths from asbestos-related disease are on the rise. The report doesn’t have much to say about perjury mills or about the domination of the asbestos docket by unimpaired claimants. It turns out (as you learn if you reach this page) that the new report “would not have been possible without the financial, intellectual and material support of the Association of Trial Lawyers of America (ATLA)”, and in particular a “grant in the amount of $176,000 from ATLA to the EWG Action Fund.” You might almost think there’s a pattern here.
IBM cleared in clean room trial
Two plaintiffs, Alida Hernandez and James Moore, had claimed that the chemicals used in the “clean rooms” by IBM had led to “systemic chemical poisoning” of themselves and other IBM workers, and that company executives knew about the hazard and concealed it. (The latter allegation was necessary to get around California worker compensation law, which doesn’t permit recovery merely for a hazardous workplace.) IBM protested that rubbing alcohol and acetone, the main chemicals the workers handled, weren’t dangerous unless ingested; that there was no such thing as “systemic chemical poisoning” that led to disparate diseases of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and breast cancer; further, the plaintiffs “had a host of health problems, including diabetes, smoking and obesity, that defense experts said may have contributed to the development of cancers.” (Moore smoked two packs a day.) The Santa Clara jury agreed, unanimously finding that the plaintiffs did not suffer from “systemic chemical poisoning.” Plaintiffs’ lawyers now go to New York, where they hope to blame birth defects of a woman who was six months’ pregnant when she started at IBM on the company (see Sep. 25). “Because of the heart-wrenching anecdotes from cancer victims and relatives, many companies settle such cases out of court – sometimes for hundreds of millions of dollars. Several IBM chemical suppliers initially named in Moore and Hernandez’s case reached settlements last year.” (Shannon Lafferty, “IBM Cleared in Toxic-Exposure Trial”, The Recorder, Feb. 27; Elise Ackerman and Therese Poletti, “Jurors rule for IBM in toxics suit”, San Jose Mercury News, Feb. 27; Chris Gaither and Terril Yue Jones, “IBM Found Not Liable for Ex-Workers’ Cancers”, LA Times, Feb. 27; Matt Richtel, “I.B.M. Wins Ex-Workers’ Cancer Suit”, NY Times, Feb. 27; Benjamin Pimentel, “IBM case goes to jury”, San Francisco Chronicle, Feb. 25; Rachel Konrad, “Jurors debate whether IBM lied about cancer-causing chemicals”, Canadian Press, Feb. 24; Peter Aronson, “Wave of IBM Suits Reaches Trial”, National Law Journal, Feb. 13; Therese Poletti, “Final witness testifies for IBM”, San Jose Mercury News, Feb. 12; Michael Santarini, “Allergist refutes chemical poisoning claims against IBM”, EE Times, Feb. 10; Rick Merritt, “Chemical exposure did not cause IBM-ers’ cancer, says expert”, EE Times, Jan. 30; full EE Times IBM trial coverage).
“Gulf war syndrome: the legal case collapses”
United Kingdom: “An eight-year, multimillion pound legal battle by more than 2,000 veterans for compensation for Gulf war syndrome has collapsed because there is not enough scientific evidence to prove their case in court.” Although the government-aided Legal Services Commission is estimated to have spent around ?4m on the case, “a trawl by scientists through 10 years of research worldwide, overseen by the veterans’ lawyers and funded by the LSC, has found no evidence which establishes any specific cause for the range of health problems they suffer. … The collapse of the case comes only months after litigation by parents who blame the MMR vaccine for their children’s autism suffered a similar fate, also for lack of scientific evidence to back up their claims.” (see Dec. 29) (Clare Dyer, The Guardian, Feb. 5). Last year a lawsuit was filed in this country against chemical companies on behalf of Gulf War Syndrome sufferers: see Aug. 25. For more on the weakness of the scientific evidence ascribing GWS to chemicals in the environment during the first Iraq war, see Michael Fumento’s work.
Ninth Circuit judge: sure, sue over ozone damage
“Although the earth’s evaporating ozone layer affects millions of people, the damage is concrete enough that an individual can sue violators of the Clean Air Act, according to a 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals judge. … [Judge Ronald] Gould opined that an individual can have standing to sue for global injuries which affect millions of people, such as ozone depletion, despite some precedent that widely shared injuries are so broad that they preclude individual damages.” Though it’s only a concurrence, it’s likely to encourage the global-warming-suit movement described in this space Feb. 6-9 and Jun. 12-15, 2003; Jul. 31 and Aug. 10-12, 2001, and Aug. 19, 1999. (Alexei Oreskovic, “Global Standing for Ozone Suits”, The Recorder, Feb. 9).
Update: Lodi
In the Lodi groundwater cleanup case we discussed last week (Jan. 12), the Lodi City Council voted 3-2 to fire the attorneys responsible for the litigation strategy. The “legal saga has grown to include more than 100 parties involving more than a half dozen different courts.” (Layla Bohm, “City Council faces tough legal decisions in pollution case”, Lodi News-Sentinel, Jan. 17; Layla Bohm, “Lodi’s days in court are far from over”, Jan. 16; Layla Bohm, “Judge postpones Lodi pollution trial”, Lodi News-Sentinel, Jan. 15; Jennifer Pearson Bonnett, “Questions linger in wake of Hays, Donovan firing”, Lodi News-Sentinel, Jan. 15; Chris Bowman, “Strategy weak, judge tells Lodi”, Sacramento Bee, Jan. 13; Jan. 12 hearing). Even more: Ken Garcia, “Lodi’s losing gamble” (column), San Francisco Chronicle, Jan. 19. Another update: May 8.
“Lodi’s legal hell”
Scathing Sacramento Bee editorial on the growing embarrassment, fiscal and otherwise, facing the city of Lodi in California’s San Joaquin County over a too-cute-by-half plan to recoup groundwater cleanup expenses by passing the bill to insurers for local businesses. Lodi officials “came up with a novel strategy: Assume authority from the state and federal governments for the clean-up, and then pass a local law that forces the polluters (or their insurance companies) to pay whatever legal costs the city might run up during the process of prosecuting the case,” even though the city’s own actions contributed to the toxic mess. Armed with the law requiring opponents to pay its fees, the city invested “$6.3 million of its own money in lawsuits against several downtown businesses and their insurers. The balance of $16 million spent on legal outlays was borrowed at credit-card interest rates from the investment banking firm Lehman Brothers of New York”.
The scheme hit the rocks last month when U.S. District Judge Frank C. Damrell Jr. ruled that the city’s cleanup ordinance conflicts with federal law and is unconstitutional. Judge Damrell said Lodi’s attorneys “have often produced unnecessarily voluminous or redundant filings and imaginative ploys that have sent this litigation needlessly down paths”. The result: “important remediation efforts have been brought to a grinding halt.” The city’s “cost recovery scheme generates the opportunity for a financial windfall for some few fortunate professionals, as well as Lehman Brothers, Inc., an investment bank, which has no interest in cleaning up the contaminated site,” Damrell said. The editorialists conclude: “Lodi is left with a problem far greater than its underground pollution and it has only itself to blame.” (Jan. 3; Cameron Jahn, “Court ruling may put Lodi on the spot for millions”, Sacramento Bee, Dec. 24). Updates: Jan. 17 (city fires attorneys responsible for litigation strategy); May 8 (messy aftermath).