38 Lockheed Workers Win Huge Toxics Suit

In one of the largest toxic pollution verdicts ever rendered, a Los Angeles Superior Court jury has awarded $760 million in punitive damages to 38 past and present Lockheed workers found to have suffered harm from chemicals while building the Stealth fighter in Burbank.

The damages were assessed against five major oil and chemical companies--Exxon, Unocal, Shell, Ashland and DuPont--which manufactured the chemicals and were adjudged to have failed to warn the workers about their toxic side effects.

The verdict, made public Friday, came a week after the same jury awarded the workers $25.4 million in compensatory damages.

A defense attorney vowed to appeal, charging that Judge Richard C. Hubbell exhibited bias by urging jurors to “send a notice out to the world” about the evils of pollution shortly before they began their deliberations on punitive damages.

The case stemmed from illnesses allegedly caused by solvents, primers and epoxies used to build aircraft during the 1960s, ‘70s and ‘80s at Lockheed’s former Burbank complex. Workers said they suffered ailments ranging from skin irritation to cancer because chemical suppliers did not adequately explain health risks or safety precautions.

Winning attorney Thomas V. Girardi and his colleagues stand to share fees of up to $300 million. The rest of the money will be proportionately allocated to the plaintiffs based on the extent of their health problems.

The huge verdict, returned Thursday, was the latest phase of a decade-old dispute involving 624 Lockheed workers who have had their claims heard in small groups. Including the latest verdicts, a total of 130 workers have had their cases at least tentatively resolved, pending appeals.

Lockheed had settled claims by the plaintiffs in 1992 for $33 million. Now, its suppliers, which held out against any settlement, find themselves assessed with far larger damages.

Attorneys said they believed Thursday’s award was exceeded only by the $1-billion settlement of the Exxon Valdez oil spill case.

Girardi, a well-known Los Angeles trial attorney, said through a spokeswoman Friday that “the jury’s award will help workers and consumers all over America.” He added: “The same arrogance that these defendants had with respect to their [lack of] warnings [to workers] was manifested by their refusal to enter into any meaningful settlement negotiations.”

But the lead defense attorney for the five companies, Laurence F. Janssen, said: “There is simply no basis for punitive damages in these cases.”

Janssen said that four juries who heard claims by other small groups of workers involved in the case had chosen not to award any punitive damages. This jury, facing evidence that was “virtually identical,” rendered a verdict “completely against established California law,” he said.

Janssen had moved last year to oust Hubbell from the case for bias and won such a ruling from an Orange County judge before the removal was struck down by a panel of the state Court of Appeal.

The lawyer charged Friday that Hubbell’s bias was evident in his pre-deliberation call to the jury to assess high punitive damages, and he released an unofficial transcript of the judge’s remarks that quoted Hubbell rhetorically asking jurors: “Now, do you want to set an example for the world? It is not just the people here, or the people in Los Angeles County of the state of California or the United States, it is worldwide.

“These people [the defendant companies] sell chemicals every place, you see. Do we want to send out a message that this conduct will not be countenanced in the least in Los Angeles County?” the transcript quoted Hubbell. “How much money is it going to take to send home a message to five of the biggest corporations in the world that this isn’t going to be done anymore?

“I think Mr. Girardi put his finger on it,” continued the judge. “So pick a figure and say, let’s send a notice out to the world, this is the price in Los Angeles County.”

Hubbell could not be reached for comment.

A spokeswoman for Girardi’s firm declined to make any plaintiffs available for interviews.

In an earlier phase of the case in 1994, Girardi asserted in his opening argument that the suppliers “put chemicals out there that cause cancer, and they knew it. They put chemicals out there that cause central nervous system damage, and they knew it.

“The question for jurors is: ‘Did they give proper notice of these kinds of problems, or did they not?’ ”

Girardi, the incoming national president of the American Board of Trial Advocates, has long been a leading national litigator of toxic pollution cases.

Two years ago, he was a lead attorney in winning a $333-million settlement from Pacific Gas and Electric for 550 plaintiffs in the desert town of Hinkley, near Barstow, for ground water contamination from a plant that used chromium.

However, that settlement is now involved in controversy, with a number of plaintiffs charging that they were shortchanged in the distribution of the settlement. Attorney fees in that settlement amounted to $133.6 million.

A year after the PG & E settlement, Girardi and his colleague in that case, Walter J. Lack, arranged a luxurious Mediterranean cruise and invited many of the participants in the case, including several private judges. Some of the judges who went on the seven-day cruise have acknowledged that they did not pay their own way.

Girardi’s success in winning cases has provoked some corporations he has opposed to hire private investigators in an attempt to prove he has undue influence over many judges, public and private. However, the vast majority of investigators and rival attorneys pursuing these allegations have declined to discuss them on the record.

Friday’s award was the latest bomb to drop in the protracted legal war over the fallout from Lockheed’s rise to glory as the top maker of Cold War spy planes.

Lockheed engineers created the U-2 spy plane, the SR-71 Blackbird and the F-117 Stealth fighter. Although the contractor’s products may have protected national security, workers and neighbors have alleged that they exacted a heavy toll on the local environment.

Federal EPA officials fined the defense contractor $460,000 in 1994 for failure to treat its industrial waste before dumping it.

Lockheed still faces a lawsuit filed by 3,000 Burbank-area residents who allege that solvents and other chemicals seeped into the region’s air and water, causing a raft of medical problems.