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DUPONT GUILTY OF WANTON, WILLFUL, RECKLESS CONDUCT - Ordered To Pay Nearly $400 Million |
| (10/22/2007) |
| DuPont has lost a second contamination suit. The company was convicted Friday of wanton, willful and reckless conduct, and ordered to pay $196.2 million in punitive damages for its actions at a former zinc-smelting plant at Spelter, Harrison County. Residents claimed the chemical giant had lied to them for decades about health threats from pollution. When combined with previous verdicts in earlier phases of the same trial, the Harrison jury has issued awards against DuPont now totaling nearly $400 million. The earlier C-8 contamination suit linked to the Washington Works in Wood County cost the company at least $500 million dollars. That suit accused the company of dumping C-8 into the region's groundwater supply. Spelter residents sued the chemical giant in a four-part trial involving property damage claims, long-term health screenings and corporate accountability. Florida attorney Mike Papantonio said the verdict should tell state environmental regulators and executives of DuPont, "it's not acceptable to put profits ahead of the health and safety and the environment of West Virginia." Papantonio indicated that regulators in the State of WV turned their heads to an obvious environmental problem. During the first phase of the suit, jurors found DuPont liable for and negligent in creating the waste site. They also found DuPont had created a public and private nuisance and that its pollution trespassed onto private property. During the second phase, the jury required DuPont to provide medical monitoring for 40 years to people who were exposed to arsenic, cadmium and lead. Jurors decided DuPont should pay about $55.5 million to clean up private properties. The attorney said "Most corporations in America play by the rules. This is an exceptional situation where we had a renegade corporation that didn't." DuPont denies any wrongdoing and intends to appeal the verdict.
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