8 Families Settle Pollution Suit for About $8 Million

Eight families who alleged that water polluted by W. R. Grace & Co. resulted in six leukemia deaths announced a settlement today, ending a suit that could have set legal precedents on the liability of toxic polluters.

“In one way I’m glad it’s over with, but I’m sorry they didn’t get nailed to the wall,” said Kathryn Gamache, whose husband, Roland, died of leukemia during the trial.

Attorneys for both sides refused to detail the agreement, but a source involved in the case said a report that the settlement was for $8 million was “fairly accurate.”

The settlement came at what was expected to be the start of the second phase of the trial, to determine whether the pollution caused the leukemia deaths. Grace had been found guilty of causing the pollution during the first phase.

Retrial of 1st Phase Ordered

But upon announcement of the settlement, U.S. District Judge Walter Jay Skinner disclosed that he had ruled that the first phase would have to be held again because of trial errors. That phase took four months, and the second was expected to be as long.

The judge said he agreed with the company’s contention that the jury had confused the dates when the pollution occurred.

The families charged in their 1982 suit that trichloroethylene and tetrachlorethylene dumped by a Grace plant after Oct. 1, 1964, contributed to the contamination of two wells in suburban Woburn, and that the contamination caused the deaths of five children and an adult and is responsible for leukemia in two other children.

The case was being watched by communities elsewhere that hoped that it would establish that companies dumping toxic waste are legally accountable for injuries and death caused by environmental contamination.