New Cancer Suit Filed Against San Onofre

For the second time, a worker suffering from cancer is suing the operators of the San Onofre nuclear power plant on grounds that he contracted the disease because the plant was negligent in the way radiation was handled.

In a lawsuit to be filed today in federal court against Southern California Edison, 62-year-old Glen James of Dominguez Hills alleges that he contracted chronic myelocytic leukemia because of his exposure to radiation at San Onofre. He is joined in the suit by his wife, Doreth.

Richard Rosenblum, an Edison vice president, denied that the company was responsible for James’ cancer. “Thirty percent of all Americans get cancer,” Rosenblum said. “With a work force as large as ours, it’s not surprising these lawyers could find another cancer patient to file a lawsuit.”

James worked at San Onofre from 1982-83 as an engineer for Bechtel Power Corp. and from 1985-86 as an engineer for Fluor Technology Inc. During the latter period, the plant suffered chronic problems with microscopic bits of radioactive fuel called “fuel fleas,” which led the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to fine and chastise Edison.

James is represented by the Los Angeles law firm Howarth & Smith, the firm that represented Rung C. Tang, 44, a former inspector for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission who was stationed at San Onofre from 1985-86 and later found to have chronic mylogenous leukemia.

Kenneth Tune, a partner in the firm, said the damages to be sought in James’ case will be $10 million to $15 million.

“He probably won’t die today or tomorrow,” Tune said, “but it’s our information that he has been told by doctors that because of his age and medical condition, he is not a candidate for a bone marrow transplant, which is the only thing that could save him.”

Many of the claims in James’ suit are identical to those in Tang’s suit: that Edison officials knew there was a severe contamination problem, that radiation detectors were faulty, and that the company cared more for profits than for workers’ safety. Edison has denied all such assertions.

Tang sued Edison, the plant’s operator and majority owner, for $15 million. A federal court jury deadlocked 7 to 2 in her favor.

Jurors later said that some of the most persuasive testimony came from Dr. Harry Demopoulos, a New York pathologist and cancer causation expert who testified that Tang’s cancer was caused by exposure at San Onofre. Demopoulos will offer similar testimony in James’ case, Tune said.

Demopoulos’ testimony in the Tang case was vigorously contested by Edison and its cancer expert Dr. Robert Gale, a professor at UCLA.

On the eve of retrial in mid-March, Edison and Tang’s attorneys reached an out-of-court settlement. The amount was not disclosed and the company admitted no wrongdoing.

Still, nuclear industry critics predicted that the settlement--thought to be the first time a cancer lawsuit has resulted in a nuclear plant operator paying damages to a former worker--would provoke other lawsuits against the nation’s 119 nuclear plants.