NEWS OF THE WEEK
AGENT ORANGE SUIT: Settlement is approved Calling it "a major step in the essential process of reconciliation among ourselves/' Judge Jack B. Weinstein last week approved the $180 million agent orange settlement reached in May between Vietnam war veterans and seven chemical companies— Dow Chemical, Diamond Shamrock, Hercules, Monsanto, TH Agriculture & Nutrition, the now-defunct Thompson Chemicals, and Uniroyal. At the same time, he said that the government knew of at least some of the health hazards posed to workers by dioxin in large concentrations and called on Washington to do more to help those who say they were harmed by exposure to the defoliant, which was contaminated with dioxin, during their service in Vietnam. The approval of the settlement by Judge Weinstein, who presided over the class-action lawsuit that ended with the agreement May 6 just as jury selection for the trial was about to begin (C&EN, May 14, page 6), came after a summer of testimony by veterans and their families on the fairness of the proposed settlement. The approval is still tentative, depending on the outcome of hearings to establish attorneys' fees and the creation of a plan to distribute the $180 million fund established by the chemical firms to the thousands of plaintiffs. In the first hearing on legal fees last week, nine attorneys who negotiated the settlement for the veterans asked for fees totaling $23.5 million. They also requested a total of $2.4 million to reimburse their firms for expenses. More than 100 lawyers who were involved in the case are seeking fees from the court, but the request from the nine lead attorneys is expected to account for the bulk of whatever is eventually paid out. A decision by the judge 4
October 1, 1984 C&EN
Weinstein: a major step
probably will not come until early next year. Saying that many of the veterans and their families "deserve better of their country/' Judge Weinstein said he approved the settlement because "it gives the class [of plaintiffs] more than it would likely achieve by attempting to litigate it to the death." "As the fairness hearings demonstrated, the s e t t l e m e n t a m o u n t would not begin to cover the total costs of medical treatment for the class, which easily could amount to billions of dollars," he said. "Ultimately, the government will have to make the political and social decision to pay these costs for veterans and their families, as it has already begun to do. This is not unfair, since the U.S. ordered the production and use of the agent orange." While criticizing the government for having some knowledge of the defoliant's toxicity, the judge also said that the seven chemical compa-
nies which supplied agent orange d u r i n g the war years were not blameless. "Even if defendants are correct that they were in effect dragooned into producing agent orange in the war effort when they would have preferred to use their limited facilities for the production of more profitable commercial herbicides, it can be argued that alerting the defense establishment to the full dangers of agent orange might have led to limits on the sale of commercial herbicides in the civilian market," he said. The crux of the defendants' intended defense, had the suit gone to trial, was to have been that as government contractors, they were immune from liability. To make that defense successful, they would have had to prove that the government knew enough of the dioxin risk to be held accountable itself. In reaching agreement with the plaintiffs' attorneys in May, the seven chemical companies denied any liability, characterizing the settlement as a reasonable alternative to protracted litigation. In addition to the government contractor defense, they also contended that there is no proof that dioxin causes any ill health effects in human beings other than chloracne, a skin condition. Research and epidemiological studies on dioxin, in fact, have failed thus far to link dioxin exposure to severe health problems. In his decision, Judge Weinstein a r g u e d for compassion for the veterans, regardless of whether or not their maladies can be traced to exposure to agent orange. "Whether their hurt can be traced to agent orange or whether they are merely 'casually unfortunate' is beside the point in the broader context of the nation's obligations to Vietnam veterans and their families," he said. •
