Lockheed Trial May Set a Record : Courts: The Burbank workers’ chemical-exposure case has kept jurors in deliberations for nine weeks.

Jurors in a marathon chemical exposure trial may have secured a place in legal history by ending their ninth week of deliberations without reaching a verdict.

Although no one keeps official statistics on such things, the lengthy quest for a verdict in the Los Angeles Superior Court trial of Lockheed workers against a group of chemical companies appears to be a local record for a civil case.

In fact, an informal survey of lawyers and researchers by The Times failed to turn up a single civil case anywhere in the U.S. that took nine weeks for jurors to decide.

“That’s remarkable,” said Rob MacCoun, a behavioral scientist with the Rand Corp.’s Institute for Civil Justice, which studies trends in civil litigation. “This is the first deliberation that I’ve heard of that’s gone over a month.”

“I’ve never heard of one that long,” said Kenneth Raymond, president of a national association of legal publishers, and publisher of Jury Verdicts Weekly, a legal publication that covers California and Nevada.

With hundreds of jury trials under his belt, Melvin Belli--the lawyer-celebrity known as “The King of Torts”--also said nine weeks may be a record.

“That’s almost as long as my longest marriage,” he quipped.

The Lockheed case involves damage claims against chemical firms that supplied solvents, resins and epoxies used by workers to make Stealth fighters and other military aircraft at Lockheed’s Burbank complex in the 1970s and ‘80s.

After more than five months of testimony, some of it highly technical, the jury of seven women and five men began deliberations Feb. 1, but their efforts so far have been fruitless.

The outcome could trigger settlements with more than 600 current and former Lockheed workers who are waiting in the wings, although the jurors are concerned only with the claims of 14 test or “pilot” plaintiffs.

The 14 workers, collectively seeking millions of dollars in damages, said they suffered maladies ranging from skin rashes to cancer because chemical suppliers failed to adequately warn them of the dangers of their products.

The defendants--including petrochemical giants Exxon, Shell, Arco and duPont--deny their products harmed the workers. They said they gave adequate safety advice to Lockheed, which is responsible for any injuries that may have occurred. Lockheed was originally a defendant but paid an undisclosed settlement last summer and was dismissed from the case.

In each of the 14 cases, jurors must decide if the worker was harmed by chemical exposure, and if inadequate safety warnings were a cause. If they decide chemical firms are liable, they must also set damage amounts and apportion them among the companies.

But the 9-3 majority needed for verdicts has eluded the jurors so far.

In a note to Judge Melvin B. Grover three weeks ago, exasperated members of the panel complained of an “emotional and antagonistic” atmosphere in which some jurors were refusing to speak to others.

Another note a week later reported some progress but continuing conflict. It concluded plaintively, “Can’t we all just get along,” echoing motorist Rodney G. King’s appeal for calm during last spring’s riots.

Jurors have continued their debate since then, sometimes stopping for hours at a time so specific testimony can be read back by a court clerk. They are to start their 10th week of deliberations Monday morning.

Lawyers in the case have been under a gag order since December, and were unavailable for comment.

The first of two McMartin child molestation trials appears to have held the record for the longest jury deliberations in the history of Los Angeles Superior Court, said Jerrianne Hayslett, the court’s public information officer.

Although spread over a dozen weeks, jurors were actually in their ninth week of deliberations when they announced their verdict in January, 1990. McMartin was a criminal case, while Lockheed is a civil dispute.

Victor Schwartz, a Washington defense attorney, adjunct professor at Georgetown University law school and co-author of a legal textbook on damage claims, said juries, even in complex cases, usually make up their minds in a matter of days.

“They usually get their act together,” Schwartz said. “They want to go home.”

Nearly eight months old including the deliberations phase, the Lockheed trial is a mere sprout compared to the nation’s longest civil trial.

In that case, 65 plaintiffs were awarded damages of more than $16 million in 1987 following a railroad spill of a dioxin-laced pesticide in Sturgeon, Mo. The trial lasted more than 3 1/2 years, but jurors took only eight weeks to reach a verdict.