CALIFORNIA CASE TESTS WORKERS' CLAIMS OF CHEMICAL EXPOSURE.Trial opened Oct. 14 in Santa Clara Santa Clara, city, Cuba Santa Clara (sän`tä klä`rä), city (1994 est. pop. 217,000), capital of Villa Clara prov., central Cuba. County (CA) Superior Court in lawsuits testing whether workers at IBM (International Business Machines Corporation, Armonk, NY, www.ibm.com) The world's largest computer company. IBM's product lines include the S/390 mainframes (zSeries), AS/400 midrange business systems (iSeries), RS/6000 workstations and servers (pSeries), Intel-based servers (xSeries) computer-parts plants can recover on claims their exposure to chemicals on the job led to cancer and birth defects birth defects, abnormalities in physical or mental structure or function that are present at birth. They range from minor to seriously deforming or life-threatening. A major defect of some type occurs in approximately 3% of all births. among their children. More than 200 suits have been filed, but the first two to go to trial were brought by Alida Hernandez, who worked for IBM for 15 years and developed breast cancer two years after she left, and James Moore James Moore and Jim Moore are the names of more than one person including the following:
Besides IBM, defendants include Union Carbide Corp., Shell Oil, and Fisher Scientific International, Inc. Some other chemical companies have settled. Plaintiffs are represented by Richard Alexander of Alexander, Hawes & Audet of San Jose. Workers' compensation workers' compensation, payment by employers for some part of the cost of injuries, or in some cases of occupational diseases, received by employees in the course of their work. laws generally bar employees from suing their employers. But plaintiffs invoked a California law allowing an exception if their employer knowingly hid their risks and the seriousness of their symptoms, and Judge Robert Baines of San Jose said the issue could go to a jury. The case is being closely watched by the legal and business communities to see whether the traditionally clean electronics industry will be subjected to more toxic tort lawsuits. IBM won an early victory when the judge ruled plaintiffs' lawyers can't use IBM's own database on mortality among its employees, saying it was "irrelevant." An expert witness for the plaintiffs, Richard Clapp of the Boston University School of Public Health Boston University School of Public Health (BUSPH) is Boston University's graduate School of Public Health. It is located in the heart of Boston University's Medical Campus in the South End neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts. The Dean is Robert Meenan. , analyzed the database and concluded in a deposition that "IBM employees were dying disproportionately of cancer at a much younger age" than the general population. IBM lawyers called the analysis "junk science," arguing among other things that IBM's workers shouldn't be compared with the general population because they are younger and thus less susceptible to longer-term ailments such as diabetes and heart disease, leading to the appearance of a higher death rate from cancer. IBM also argues systemic chemical poisoning isn't a medically recognized ailment ail·ment n. A physical or mental disorder, especially a mild illness. and challenges the link of chemical exposure to the plaintiffs' cancers. |
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