Jury rules against most who lived downwind from nuclear plant

Jury rules against most who lived downwind from nuclear plant: "downwind from nuclear plant

Nicholas K. Geranios
Associated Press
May. 20, 2005 08:05 AM

SPOKANE, Wash. - A federal jury has awarded more than $500,000 to two thyroid cancer victims who blamed their disease on radiation from the Hanford nuclear weapons complex - a decision some lawyers called historic.

In a verdict announced Thursday, the jury deadlocked over whether another plaintiff's thyroid cancer was caused by radiation that escaped from Hanford, and it ruled against three others with thyroid-related autoimmune diseases.

The decisions came in a 14-year-old lawsuit against corporations that made plutonium for the federal government on the south-central Washington reservation. Both sides claimed victory.
advertisement


'This is the first time that offsite residents have proven that a Department of Energy nuclear weapons plant has caused their cancer,' said Louise Roselle of Cincinnati, a lawyer for some of the plaintiffs.

'This jury's verdict is a very strong message to the government and to these corporate defendants,' Roselle said, adding that the government spent $60 million on lawyers to defend the private companies that operated Hanford.

But Kevin Van Wart, whose Chicago law firm represented General Electric Co., E.I. DuPont de Nemours Co. and UNC Nuclear Inc., said the fact that only two of the six plaintiffs won verdicts, and relatively small financial judgments, was a win for his side.

The six 'were their best, hand-picked cases' of nearly 2,300 that are pending, Van Wart said.

He noted the jury awarded just $227,508 in damages to Steve Stanton and $317,251 to Gloria Wise, far less than it cost to bring the case to trial.

Plaintiff Shannon Rhodes of Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, was shocked the jury deadlocked on her claim that her thyroid cancer was caused by the radiation.

'I'm just so disappointed,' Rhodes said.

The jury of six men and six women in the three-week t"