Judge Urges Carbide Fund to Aid Bhopal : Suggests Emergency Assistance as Matter of ‘Human Decency’

A federal judge today called on Union Carbide to set up an immediate emergency fund for victims of last December’s chemical disaster in Bhopal, India, as a matter of “fundamental human decency.”

In his first meeting with lawyers suing Union Carbide on behalf of the accident victims, U.S. District Judge John F. Keenan proposed that the two sides establish “some sort of emergency systematic relief.” Such payments, he said, would not be an admission of liability on Union Carbide’s part.

Keenan said he still has no opinion on the key question of whether the case belongs in the U.S. courts at all, as the plaintiffs maintain, or whether it should be transferred to India, where damage payments to victims would probably be much lower.

More than 2,000 people were killed and about 200,000 were injured Dec. 3 when a cloud of methyl isocyanate gas escaped from a pesticide plant. The gas drifted through a crowded slum in Bhopal in one of the worst industrial accidents in history.

Keenan also moved to settle a jurisdictional dispute among the plaintiffs’ lawyers.

3-Member Committee

The judge ordered the creation of a three-member executive committee, to include one lawyer representing the Indian government and two other American lawyers representing private plaintiffs. Three factions of U.S. lawyers have competed among themselves and with the Indian government lawyers for leadership in the case.

The emergency payments were first proposed by David Shrager of Philadelphia, the leader of one of the three groups. Keenan endorsed it but stopped short of ordering any such payment plan to be put in effect.

The other two groups of American lawyers are led by F. Lee Bailey of New York, who has advocated an early settlement, and by Melvin Belli of San Francisco and Stanley Chesley of Cincinnati, who have indicated they believe settlement talks are premature.

The Indian government, which sued Union Carbide last week on behalf of all its citizens, has been providing emergency relief to Bhopal victims and seeks reimbursement from Union Carbide, as well as compensation and punitive damages.

The New Delhi government disclosed last week that it had rejected an initial settlement offer from Union Carbide. Neither side would discuss the amount, but Indian press reports said the offer was for about $200 million.