A Cook County judge has refused the attempt by food ingredients maker Griffith Foods to escape hundreds of lawsuits, which assert the Alsip-based company should be made to pay for its role in establishing a now-shuttered medical device sterilization facility in Chicago’s western suburbs 37 years ago, which plaintiffs assert was later responsible for emitting the chemical known as ethylene oxide into the air in the region, allegedly causing cancer and other illnesses.
The Nov. 16 decision from Cook County Circuit Judge Marguerite A. Quinn has since appeared to spur a new surge of hundreds more lawsuits against Griffith Foods and several other defendants associated with the former Sterigenics sterilization plant in Willowbrook, adding to the hundreds of such lawsuits already pending in Cook County court.
The plaintiffs have been in court against Oak Brook-based Sterigenics International since 2018.
Antonio M. Romanucci
| rblaw.net
Those lawsuits were spurred in large part by a report issued that year by the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR), which asserted Sterigenics’ emissions from the use of the chemical gas known as ethylene oxide (EtO) had significantly increased the risk of cancer and other illnesses in Willowbrook and surrounding communities.
The plant was used to sterilize large quantities of key medical devices and surgical tools, including those used in heart surgery, knee replacements and a host of other surgical and other medical procedures.
Sterigenics has asserted its use of EtO was essential to sterilizing medical devices and reducing infection risks in hospitals and operating rooms. They have asserted there is no other sterilization method that can replace the use of EtO, to properly sterilize such medical devices and tools.
However, in response to public pressure from a group of anti-Sterigenics activists, the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency, under Gov. JB Pritzker, ordered the plant to cease operations in early 2019. Sterigenics’ plant has remained closed since that day.
Sterigenics accused Pritzker and the IEPA of acting illegally and unconstitutionally in sealing their facility. They noted they have never been accused of violating any emissions limits imposed by either the state or federal government.
In the meantime, Illinois enacted stringent new EtO emission limits. Faced with the threat of continued political and court fights, Sterigenics opted not to reopen its facility.
However, the lawsuits against Sterigenics continued. In 2020, hundreds of new lawsuits were added to the constantly growing total.
The more recent lawsuits, however, also added new defendants, including food ingredients maker Griffith Foods. Sterigenics asserted in court filings that the addition of new defendants was a “transparent ploy” to “enlarge the pool of potential deep pockets” from which plaintiffs could extract a potentially massive settlement or judgment.
Cook County courts have consolidated the actions against Sterigenics and other defendants for the purposes of discovery and other proceedings. The lawsuits now share a single so-called master complaint.
The complaint asserts Griffith Foods should share direct liability for its role in opening the Willowbrook sterilization plant in the mid-1980s, and then allegedly operating the plant through a subsidiary company, known as Micro-Biotrol, until 1999.
Griffith Foods has disputed those claims, asserting it has had nothing to do with the plant for decades. Further, Griffith asserted Sterigenics had assumed “the liability for the alleged wrongdoing of Griffith Foods” when Sterigenics acquired the Willowbrook plant.
Plaintiffs, however, have responded by arguing Griffith’s relationship to the Willowbrook plant is not that simple. They assert Griffith chose the site on which the plant would be built, and then continued to play a role in directing operations at the plant until 1999. According to plaintiffs, that allegedly included any alleged decisions concerning the control and release of EtO emissions from the facility, and concerning the decision “not to warn those living and working in the Willowbrook community that they would be exposed to and caused to inhale a carcinogenic on a routine and continuous basis.”
Further, the plaintiffs have argued they do not believe Sterigenics assumed the liabilities for Griffith Foods.
Judge Quinn said Griffith Foods “may have raised rather salient questions” in contesting the plaintiffs’ liability claims.
But the judge said, for now, the plaintiffs’ allegations are specific enough and sufficient enough to allow the claims against Griffith Foods to continue.
“… This Court would note that the focus of the analysis above was simply whether Plaintiffs had alleged sufficient facts to state a cause of action, not whether they presented sufficient evidence to prevail on every element of their claims, as they need not prove their case at this stage of the litigation,” Judge Quinn wrote.
The decision to keep Griffith Foods as another potential payer of damages, has appeared in the weeks since the Nov. 16 decision, to open the gates to a new round of hundreds of lawsuits against Sterigenics, Griffith Foods and other defendants.
According to Cook County court dockets, more than 460 lawsuits were filed against those defendants since Nov. 19. The lawsuit were filed by attorneys from Chicago area personal injury law firms which have been involved in the Sterigenics litigation from the beginning, including Corboy & Demetrio; Romanucci & Blandin; Hart McLaughlin & Eldridge; Salvi & Schostok; the Collins Law Firm; Smith LaCien; and Tomasik Kotin & Kasserman.
Griffith Foods is represented by attorneys with the firm of Perkins Coie, of Chicago.
Sterigenics is represented by the firm of Sidley Austin, of Chicago.