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Built Auto Safety Part : Retarded Pair Got Mercury Poisoning on Job, Suit Says

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Times Staff Writer

Two workers in a job-training program at a Simi Valley shelter for retarded people have charged that they were poisoned with mercury and permanently disabled while assembling an automotive safety device at the nonprofit agency.

The pair have sued the Ventura County Assn. for Retarded Citizens and a Westlake Village company that marketed “Fire Ban,” a battery cutoff switch that uses mercury to shut off electric current in the event of a car crash.

The nonprofit work-training organization was a subcontractor in assembling 50,000 of the three-inch-long plastic devices during late 1983 and the spring of 1984.

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Lack of Warning Alleged

Karen Tallman, 28, of Thousand Oaks, and Aaron Kramer, 22, of Simi Valley, contended that shelter operators failed to inform them of the danger of mercury contamination as they poured small droplets of liquid mercury into the devices.

Their lawsuit, filed Friday in Ventura County Superior Court, alleges that officials also failed to provide adequate protective equipment or proper ventilation at the shelter workshop at 3150 School Road. It charges that state inspectors found traces of mercury between floor tiles, on shelter equipment and on a blackboard ledge months after the poisonings were detected.

Shelter administrators Wednesday denied wrongdoing.They said that all mercury has been removed from the workshop and that indications of contamination in both workers are also gone.

But the suit, which asks for unspecified damages for the pair, alleges that both suffered permanent disability and loss of earning power because of the poisoning. It states that the contamination could cause them “possible genetic defects” that could prevent them from ever bearing children.

‘Could Not Fully Comprehend’

The pair assert that association administrators and officials and the Fat Chance Corp., the Westlake Village firm that subcontracted with the agency, knew “they would be utilizing the services of handicapped individuals who did not and could not fully comprehend the dangers and risks involved in working with liquid mercury.”

Richard G. Tarlow, a Calabasas lawyer hired by the workers’ families, compared the mercury assembly work to “giving them handguns and bullets and letting them fire at each other.”

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“They have the mental age of 12,” Tarlow said of the two workers. “They would wipe off the excess glue on these little vials with their fingers and bite the glue off and ingest mercury. It’s impossible to know what the long-term effects will be.”

But Marilyn C. Cothran, director of rehabilitation at the association’s Simi Valley shelter, denied Wednesday that her agency had failed to protect the two workers.

She said her organization took quick action to halt production of the Fire Ban devices when an association staff member learned during a routine physical examination that she had an elevated level of mercury in her system.

After that diagnosis, Tallman and Kramer were sent by the shelter for a medical checkup because “they were the two primary people involved” with the handling of mercury, Cothran said.

Doctors’ OK Related

Cothran said the association was informed that all traces of mercury had disappeared from the pair’s bodies by last summer and both workers were cleared by their doctors to return to the shelter to work.

She said the workshop is adequately ventilated by an air-conditioning system. During production of the Fire Ban devices, two exterior doors were also kept open, she said.

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Bonnie Hammond, a rehabilitation worker who helped supervise the production of the devices, said the assembly-line operation was set up under the direction of Fat Chance Corp.’s owner, Dick Yeoman of Westlake Village.

“It’s been so long ago that I can’t remember exactly what he said,” Hammond said, referring to the mercury-handling instructions. “He warned us about not getting it on our jewelry.”

Yeoman Not Reached

Yeoman could not be reached for comment Wednesday.

Association officials said their 31-year-old organization runs three shelters in Ventura County. They said the Simi Valley shelter works with a $400,000 annual budget that is primarily financed from tuition paid by retarded clients. The clients receive money for personal rehabilitative training from the state.

Workers in the training program are paid on a per-piece basis for work on the assembly line. Officials said Tallman, who scooped mercury into the containers and glued on their caps, earned about $60 per month. Kramer was paid about $85 per month to tighten the lids and wipe off loose glue.

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