State and federal agencies approved operations at a medical device sterilization facility in suburban Willowbrook, the company argues in documents again asking a court to dismiss personal injury lawsuits alleging the plant's emissions caused cancer.
"The core question in this litigation is whether Plaintiffs should be permitted to hold a company liable in tort for operating as expressly authorized by state and federal agencies, when Plaintiffs have not identified any standard of care that the company failed to meet," Sterigenics contends in recent court documents. "The answer to that straightforward question is no."
More than four dozen suits were lodged in 2018-19 in Cook County Circuit Court against Sterigenics U.S., its parent company Sotera Health and investment advisor GTCR. Also named in the suit are Bob Novak and Roger Clark, who were the operations manager and maintenance supervisor respectively at the now-shuttered Willowbrook plant.
The suits, which have been consolidated into one action, allege emissions into the atmosphere of a sterilizing gas, ethylene oxide (EtO), caused various kinds of cancer and other maladies in the Willowbrook area. Sterigenics, based in suburban Oak Brook, ran the facility.
Sterigenics has countered its emissions were subject to "strict, extensive, and exacting" environmental regulations and never broke any federal or state laws. However, plaintiffs allege the emissions created a "public nuisance," irrelevant to whether any laws were violated.
The Illinois Environmental Protection Agency, under Gov. JB Pritzker, closed the facility in February 2019.
In November 2019, defendants filed motions asking Circuit Judge Christopher Lawler to toss the suits; they recently put forth their arguments supporting the motions.
Sterigenics led the charge, stressing it complied with the law.
"Despite both the state and federal governments’ continuous regulation and authorization of emissions at the Willowbrook facility, Plaintiffs boldly and baldly allege that the facility’s operations were somehow tortious," Sterigenics said in recent filings.
Sterigenics additionally contends the suits should be thrown out because plaintiffs' claims that the facility was a nuisance have already been adjudicated through the legal action brought by the Illinois EPA. The company said it should not have to "face the same public nuisance claims twice."
Ohio-based Sotera Health, parent company of Sterigenics, argued it had nothing to do with operating the facility, but was "dragged" into the litigation in a "transparent ploy" to "enlarge the pool of potential deep pockets."
Sotera added that the concept of corporate liability does not apply against it because "such an approach violates long-established law vigorously protecting distinctions between corporate entities."
The two members of plant management, Novak and Clark, maintained they were grafted onto the litigation for no other reason than they are Illinois residents, and plaintiffs saw them as necessary to root the suits in state court. Novak and Clark also claimed plaintiffs wrongly suggest the managers had a "duty to second-guess the judgment of federal and state regulatory agencies."
The Chicago-based GTCR said it "merely" advises investors in Sotera Health. Plaintiffs did not allege GTCR played a role in Sterigenics' use of EtO, "much less instructed them on using and emitting EtO," according to GTCR.
The investment firm further argued, "Plaintiffs’ attempt to cast" GTCR's "activities such as the acquisition of new business, payout of dividends, and business strategies that result in profits as somehow nefarious, fall flat."
In addition, GTCR predicted that if plaintiffs claims are not blocked, the claims will "stifle similar investment in important activities such as Sterigenics U.S.’s life-saving sterilization operations."
Sterigenics has repeatedly noted its facilities sterilize a host of medical devices, including surgical kits and instruments, implants like pacemakers, syringes, stents, catheters, and personal protective equipment used by health care professionals responding to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Sterigenics is represented by the Chicago firm of Sidley Austin LLP.
The plaintiffs are represented by a number of Chicago-based firms, including Romanucci & Blandin; Tomasik Kotin Kasserman; Salvi Schostok & Pritchard; Hart McLaughlin & Eldridge; Power Rogers & Smith; GWC Injury Lawyers; Dolan Law Offices; Corboy & Demetrio; and Miner, Barnhill & Galland; and the Collins Law Firm, of Naperville.