$50,000 Award Ordered in Cancer Death : Court of Appeal Cites ‘Reasonable Probability’ of Cause by PCBs

Mary Ann Hahn watched her husband, a veteran of 18 years as a maintenance electrician at Southern California Edison Co., weaken and finally die of skin cancer.

The end came for 45-year-old Milton Hahn in 1982, a year after his diagnosis and three years after Edison first issued protective clothing to workers who were regularly exposed to polychlorinated biphenyls--commonly known as PCBs--while on the job. In his maintenance job, Milton Hahn repaired and maintained electrical equipment that contained oil with PCBs.

After his death, his childless Los Alamitos widow began a lonely legal battle to prove that the cancer that killed him was fed by exposure to PCBs. On Tuesday, one year after Mary Ann Hahn’s death--also of cancer--the case was won.

A state appellate court in Santa Ana ruled that she had proved to a “reasonable probability” that the continual exposure to PCBs caused or contributed to her husband’s death. The opinion, written by Justice Sheila Prell Sonenshine, ordered the payment of $50,000 in workers’ compensation death benefits to Mary Ann Hahn’s estate.

The state workers’ compensation appeals board should not have required proof to an “absolute certainty” of the PCBs causation, Sonenshine wrote, but only a showing of a “reasonable probability” of a link.

An Edison spokesman said an appeal is unlikely.

“We are naturally disappointed, but it was a close question of law, and the judges have made their decision,” said Robert L. Hull, media relations manager for Edison. “There is no future action anticipated at this time.”

The 4th District Court of Appeal decision was hailed by Gilbert Katen, Hahn’s lawyer.

“My God, if everybody had to prove the cause of cancer to a certainty nobody would ever recover,” Katen said. “Edison’s contention throughout the whole case has been that it really hasn’t been shown that PCBs are carcinogenic.”

PCBs have been used in electrical capacitors, transformers and circuit breakers. They have long been suspected of causing cancer of the liver and pancreas.

The federal Environmental Protection Agency and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health have identified concentrations of the chemical that are considered hazardous.

Three co-workers of Hahn testified at a hearing two years ago that direct exposure to oil bearing PCBs was a regular part of their maintenance jobs until 1979.

One, Wally Aoki, told of seeing Hahn “crawl into the circuit breakers where the oil had been . . . and hand wipe down the inside--and the residue would always remain, and you couldn’t get it off.”

In 1979, Edison told workers the substance may be cancer-causing. Workers were issued protective clothing and face masks, according to the court file in the workers’ compensation case.

Tests on Aoki and his two co-workers showed the presence of PCBs when Edison first had blood samples taken in 1983, the co-workers testified.

Edison’s lawyers argued that any link between cancer and PCBs is a matter of “conjecture.” Studies of Edison facilities have shown that 97% of the suspect oil contains PCBs well below the concentrations identified as hazardous by the EPA and NIOSH, according to the firm’s lawyers.

Physicians’ Testimony

Four physicians called as witnesses by Edison lawyers said studies on animals show that PCBs may promote cancer, but there is no evidence that the substance actually causes cancer.

Sonenshine concluded that Hahn’s longtime exposure to PCBs had been proved, as well as the “reasonable medical probability” that it caused his death.

Edison spokesman Hull said all equipment containing PCBs is being phased out, and today there is “not much left at all” in the field.

Hull had no information on any other similar claims by utility workers.

If Edison does not appeal, the death benefits will be paid directly by the utility to Hahn’s estate.

The widow’s estate totaled $319,000, according to her probate lawyer, Talmadge Hagee of Long Beach.

She made her will shortly before she died of Hodgkin’s disease last year, Hagee said. No one has suggested that her death was in any way related to her husband’s medical problems.

The will provides for a special gift to the City of Hope, the medical research charity.

About $67,000 worth of Edison stock accumulated by Milton Hahn plus the workers’ compensation death benefits will go to the charity, Hagee said.