Jury Awards $25,000 to Couple Whose Yard Was Doused by PCBs

Deciding it was “an unfortunate accident,” a jury Wednesday awarded minimal damages to a Huntington Beach couple whose backyard was contaminated with toxic chemicals after a transformer exploded.

Southern California Edison Co. was ordered to pay $25,000 to Stanley and Chris Carlson for the damage done to their home when PCBs, a suspected carcinogen, spewed on their backyard in 1980.

But jurors in the courtroom of Orange County Superior Court Judge Richard N. Parslow Jr. rejected the Carlsons’ claims that the presence of the substance caused them severe anguish.

“We just felt that it wasn’t proved that they suffered severe emotional distress,” said jury foreman Paul Bibeau, an electrical engineer from Yorba Linda.

‘We Didn’t Get Cancer’

Bibeau said jurors sympathized with the couple, but felt that “things like this happen to a lot of people” and that “you’ve got to learn to live with them.”

Carlson, who appeared frustrated and unhappy over the verdict, said he thought the reason the couple lost was because “we didn’t get cancer.”

PCBs, or polychlorinated biphenyls, were widely used in electrical transformer insulation and hydraulic systems before their manufacture was banned in the United States in 1976. They have been linked to cancer in laboratory animals and have been classified as a probable human carcinogen by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Larry Bruce, the Carlsons’ attorney, said there will be no appeal of the jury verdict.

Edison’s attorney, William G. Tucker, called Wednesday’s verdict a “victory for the jury system.”

Tucker said the Carlsons had “a cancer phobia,” but that their fear of PCBs was “self-induced.”

He insisted that levels of PCBs found in the Carlsons were within the normal range.

When the transformer exploded in 1980, spewing oil laden with PCBs on their yard, Carlson said a utility employee told him that there was nothing to worry about. It was “just like mineral oil,” Carlson testified the worker told him.

Accepted the Advice

He said he accepted the advice and continued to use the backyard, even planting a vegetable garden. But, Carlson testified, a friend told him about PCBs, and he began to worry. He said he read about the substance and made repeated inquiries to Southern California Edison.

Five months after the spill, Edison took soil samples, and then a cleanup crew clad in protective clothing removed 40 55-gallon drums of contaminated soil.

Edison lawyers denied during the trial that the Carlsons were misled about the spill. They said workers did a thorough cleanup job once the hazard was recognized. Neither the Carlsons nor their young daughter have suffered any ill effects from the incident, the utility contended.

Tucker insisted that there is no increased risk of contracting cancer from the PCBs spilled in the Carlsons’ backyard.

Tests conducted on produce grown in the garden, much of which the Carlsons gave away to friends, showed no dangerous levels of the substance, Tucker said.

For Reduced Value

Experts for Edison testified that the panic over PCBs in the late 1970s has been undercut by subsequent research. For instance, no research anywhere indicates that humans can become afflicted through contaminated produce, they said.

The $25,000 awarded by the jury is to compensate the Carlsons for the reduced value of their home--valued at $210,000 in 1980--as a result of the spill.

The home has never been listed for sale, but Carlson said he is concerned about his potential liability should future studies suggest greater danger from exposure to PCBs.

Carlson said the award doesn’t help because he doesn’t believe anyone would buy the house, given its history.