Rulings setup trials against DuPont over C8 exposure (WV, OH)
Charleston Gazette-Mail
Rulings setup trials against DuPont over C8 exposure
by Ken Ward Jr., Staff writer
A federal judge last week issued the latest in a series of rulings that stopped efforts by DuPont Co. to derail the trials in the first two cases among thousands of lawsuits filed against the chemical giant by Mid-Ohio Valley residents who say exposure to DuPont C8 pollution made them sick.
U.S. District Judge Edmund A. Sargus Jr. rejected DuPont’s motion for summary judgment in those two cases, further paving the way for trials scheduled to start in mid-September and late November in federal court in Columbus, Ohio.
The six-page ruling, issued on July 21, was at least the third time that Sargus has ruled that the findings of a scientific panel that DuPont agreed to create limit what residents have to prove to make their case against the company.
The two cases are among more than 2,900 C8 lawsuits that had been filed against DuPont as of the end of last year, according to the company’s financial filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
C8 is another name for perfluorooctanoate acid, or PFOA. In West Virginia, DuPont has used C8 since the 1950s as a processing agent to make Teflon and other nonstick products, oil-resistant paper packaging and stain-resistant textiles.
DuPont and other companies have reduced their emissions and agreed on a voluntary phase-out of the chemical, but researchers are still concerned about a growing list of possible health effects and about the chemical’s presence in consumer products, as well as continued pollution from waste disposal practices.
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My father was upper management in PPG Ind. As his kids got to ages where they'd enter job market, he told us he'd prefer we did not work for one of the way too numerous chemical plants that line the Ohio River -- for our own safety.
