[tceblog] Neil Fischbein: Guilty, facing punitive damages, Aerojet settles personal injury lawsuits (CA)

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Posted by Neil Fischbein:
Guilty, facing punitive damages, Aerojet settles personal injury lawsuits (CA)
http://www.tceblog.com/posts/1148014430.shtml


   According to [1]this report in Wednesday's Sacramento Bee:

     Aerojet-General Corp. has agreed to pay a $25 million settlement
     after a jury found the defense contractor responsible for the
     deaths of three former Rancho Cordova residents and the illnesses
     of four others who drank tap water contaminated with rocket fuel.
     A Sacramento Superior Court jury awarded more than $14 million in
     damages to the plaintiffs last week following a twomonth trial.
     Aerojet officials, faced with possible punitive damages, agreed
     Friday to settle the case for an additional $11 million.
     [...]
     The jury found Aerojet "was negligent with respect to its
     operations, chemical handling, treatment and/or disposal process"
     of toxic chemicals.
     "I was very impressed with the intelligence and attention span of
     the jury," said [2]Gary Praglin, a Los Angeles lawyer representing
     the plaintiffs.
     [...]
     The jury's findings pertained to Aerojet's operations in the 1960s
     and 1970s when the key clean-water and hazardous-materials laws
     were in their infancy and utilities did not routinely monitor
     drinking water for the chemicals Aerojet dumped. At the time,
     Aerojet disposed of residual rocket fuel and metalcleaning solvents
     in unlined open pits, allowing the contaminants to seep through the
     soil and into the groundwater tapped for Rancho Cordova homes.
     The case involved three water contaminants linked to Aerojet
     operations: perchlorate, an oxidizing component of solid rocket
     propellant known to cause thyroid disorders; NDMA, a cancercausing
     combustion product of liquid rocket fuel; and trichloroethylene
     (TCE), an industrial solvent that has been linked to brain damage,
     liver cancer, skin diseases and immune disorders.
     The jury found Aerojet's negligence "was a substantial factor" in
     causing thyroid disease in the four surviving plaintiffs and in
     causing the deaths of three others from lymphoma, a cancer of the
     blood, and melanoma, a skin cancer, according to the verdict. The
     individual damages awarded ranged from $150,000 to $5 million. The
     suit was filed in the late 1990s on behalf of the stricken or their
     survivors: Cheryl Fischer- Smith, who died as a result of
     non-Hodgkin's lymphoma; Pamela Lowndes who succumbed to melanoma;
     Deangela Smith, Terilynne Steinman and Joan Van Den Berg, for their
     thyroid disorders; Donna Marinelli, who has thyroid cancer; and her
     father, Anthony Marinelli, who died of lymphoma.
     "The settlement these people got was real nice, but it will not pay
     for the suffering they went through," said Greg Voetsch, 72, whose
     family reached itsown settlement about two years ago in a similar
     case against Aerojet. Before moving to Rancho Cordova in 1970, the
     family lived in the Los Angeles County city of Azusa - in the
     shadow of another Aerojet plant. The water supplying that
     neighborhood has been found to be polluted with perchlorate and
     TCE.
     In the 1980s, Voetsch said his wife, Doris, 70, developed breast
     cancer. Voetsch said he has had thyroid cancer as have two of his
     daughters.
     Then early this year, after the family bought a new car and began
     making home improvements with the settlement money, doctors began
     to find one cancer after another in Doris Voetsch, first in her
     colon, then her lungs, then her throat and, most recently, a
     recurrence of breast cancer that led to a full mastectomy.
     [...]
     California has by far the most extensive perchlorate contamination
     in the country, with nearly 300 affected wells. Today, the
     Arden-Cordova Water Service and the Sacramento County Water Agency
     have 14 fewer wells to serve 60,000 Rancho Cordova residents
     because of Aerojet pollution. Regulators and affected industries
     have been wrestling over setting a "safe" limit of perchlorate in
     drinking water.

   Though we've already quoted liberally from it, you can read the full
   story [3]here.
   Note: It looks like [4]the story was carried by the Sacramento Buiness
   Journal two days earlier. They include an explanation of the size of
   the lawsuit (# of plaintiffs) over time:

     Hundreds of plaintiffs were involved in four lawsuits against
     Aerojet over perchlorate, a component of rocket fuel, and other
     contaminants that leached into drinking water wells. Plaintiffs
     dropped out over time, leaving about 60 plaintiffs in three
     consolidated lawsuits by summer 2004. By the time trial began, it
     was down to two cases and 10 plaintiffs, according to courthouse
     personnel.

References

   1. http://www.sacbee.com/content/news/story/14256320p-15071357c.html
   2. http://elllaw.com/content_pages/g_praglin.htm
   3. http://www.sacbee.com/content/news/story/14256320p-15071357c.html
   4. http://sanantonio.bizjournals.com/sacramento/stories/2006/05/15/daily6.html