SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) Two former IBM employees who believe
their semiconductor factory jobs exposed them to cancer-causing
chemicals will be able to proceed with their potentially
groundbreaking lawsuits against the technology giant.
Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Robert Baines ruled
Tuesday that the cases of Alida Hernandez and James Moore, who
worked in IBM's South San Jose microchip assembly plant for much of
the 1970s and '80s, could proceed to a jury trial starting Oct. 14.
IBM contended in court last week that Hernandez and Moore's
cases had no merit and should not be heard.
Hernandez and Moore allege that the Armonk, N.Y.-based corporate
behemoth intentionally exposed workers to cancer-causing chemicals
such as benzene and arsenic, and lied to them about the health
risks. They say IBM doctors knew that an alarming number of workers
in its semiconductor ``fabs'' were dying from rare cancers in their
30s, 40s and 50s.
The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages against IBM and its
chemical suppliers, including Union Carbide, Shell Oil and Fisher
Scientific.
``We've been fighting to get IBM in court for five years, so
we're looking forward to the trial,'' Richard Alexander, leader of
a six-person team representing the San Jose workers, said Friday.
``It's time the truth was heard.''
Moore and Hernandez's cases, filed in 1998, were the first of
more than 250 lawsuits filed against IBM from workers in Silicon
Valley, New York and Minnesota. It's unclear how many plaintiffs
will proceed to jury trials.
In a series of written rulings issued Tuesday, Baines dismissed
two other cases against IBM by former employee Maria Santiago and
the children of Suzanne Rubio, an IBM disk assembler and inspector
who died of breast cancer at age 37.
David J. DiMeglio, a lawyer representing IBM, said the
dismissals were ``deeply gratifying.''
``Today's ruling, which dismisses outright two of the four
plaintiffs' cases, essentially guts the entire theory that all
plaintiffs were proceeding by,'' DiMeglio said. ``The ruling sets a
high legal standard that the remaining plaintiffs won't be able to
meet.''
Baines refused to dismiss cases by Santiago and Rubio's children
against IBM chemical suppliers Shell and Union Carbide. They will
go to trial with Moore and Hernandez's cases, and closing arguments
are expected by the end of the year.
The IBM lawsuit has fixated scientists who have long debated the
existence of ``disease clusters.'' Movies such as ``Erin
Brockovich'' and ``A Civil Action'' have expanded an esoteric
debate among epidemiologists and statisticians into a heated public
health issue.
Because of the threat of negative publicity and heart-wrenching
anecdotes, the vast majority of environmental exposure cases
against big companies are settled out of court, sometimes for
hundreds of millions of dollars.
IBM settled a lawsuit in 2001 by two former employees who
alleged that exposure to chemicals caused birth defects in their
son. IBM suppliers Ashland Chemical Co., Eastman Kodak Co. and
DuPont Corp. all named in the San Jose case reached tentative
settlements with more than 250 plaintiffs.
But Big Blue has refused to settle the San Jose cases, despite
the fact that it has made public hundreds of court documents
detailing human misery and allegations of corporate secrecy.
According to a ``corporate mortality file'' used to document the
deaths of 30,000 IBM employees from 1969 to 2000, an unusually
large number of workers were struck with relatively rare forms of
cancer in their 30s, 40s and 50s. They often contracted lymph,
blood, breast and brain cancers, as well as non-Hodgkin's lymphoma,
leukemia and the very rare multiple myeloma.
IBM and its attorneys say it's impossible to know whether
exposure to toxins in IBM plants as opposed to genetic factors or
lifestyle decisions such as smoking or drug use lead to early
deaths and illnesses. They argue that company doctors could not
possibly have known that sore throats, bloody noses,
conjunctivitis, elevated liver enzyme counts and other ailments
were precursors of cancer or symptoms of ``systemic chemical
poisoning.''
``We look forward to defending the remaining cases before a
jury,'' DiMeglio said. ``Their claims just don't have the factual
or legal support. ... There is no evidence, and they're not going
to produce any, that IBM ever knew that Mr. Hernandez or Mr. Moore
had systemic chemical poisoning.''
Hernandez was diagnosed with breast cancer and underwent a
mastectomy two years after retiring from IBM, despite having no
family history of the disease. Moore, who began working for IBM in
the late 1960s, is battling non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. Alexander said
both will testify during the hearing.
``We're going to let the jury hear real people explain what it
was like working there on a daily basis, getting dosed with
chemicals all the time,'' Alexander said. ``It's outrageous people
were treated this way.''
(Copyright 2003 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)