An insurance company says medical device sterilizer Medline Industries should be left to fend for itself against a collection of 90 lawsuits accusing the company of emitting too much of a chemical compound that is used extensively in industry and is key to ensuring a wide range of devices and tools used in hospitals and medical settings are contagion-free, and which the lawsuits have blamed for causing cancer.
Since mid-2019, Medline has been targeted by a growing number of personal injury lawsuits. The complaints, mostly filed in Cook County Circuit Court, have been brought on behalf of people who said they lived within a few miles of Medline’s plant in north suburban Waukegan, and who have either died or have been diagnosed with certain forms of cancer.
The complaints lay the blame for the cancer on alleged emissions of the chemical compound known as ethylene oxide.
The use of ethylene oxide (EtO) is widespread in various industries, including many in operation in the Chicago area. In manufacturing, the compound is known as a key building block ingredient for a wide range of products, from antifreeze and recyclable packaging, to nearly all products made of fiberglass. Derivatives of EtO are used to make shampoo and other personal care items, as well as some pharmaceuticals.
Medical device sterilizers, like Medline, use EtO to sterilize a wide variety of medical devices and tools, including surgical implants, like pacemakers, stents and catheters, as well as surgical kits and other health care items used in operating rooms and other medical settings.
Medical device makers have said the use of the compound is all but essential to ensure those devices are safe for patients.
However, since 2018, the use of EtO by the medical device sterilizers has drawn the attention of activists, government officials and trial lawyers.
In Illinois, the anti-EtO effort began when activists and trial lawyers targeted sterilization company Sterigenics, which operated a plant in west suburban Willowbrook.
Pressed by activists, the state of Illinois targeted the Sterigenics plant for closure, ultimately forcing the company to pull out of Illinois, even though the company had never violated the emission limits set in the operating permit issued by the state.
However, Sterigenics continues to face a mountain of hundreds of lawsuits brought on behalf of people who lived in and around Willowbrook, who claimed the company’s EtO emissions caused cancer.
As the lawsuits first filtered into Cook County court against Sterigenics, some of the same plaintiffs’ lawyers filed similar claims against Medline, over its Waukegan facility.
In the wake of the increased scrutiny from regulators, Medline has trumpeted its work to install a broad range of new emissions control systems.
But those lawsuits remain pending.
And in the most recent filing, insurer Evanston Insurance asserts it should have no obligation to help Medline funds its defense against at least 90 of those claims.
The insurer claims its policies only cover “sudden” or “abrupt discharges” of emissions – not the kind of long-running EtO emissions the plaintiffs claim Medline discharged.
Further, the insurer asserts Medline is attempting to use a policy that began in mid-2021 to cover expenses related to lawsuits filed two years earlier.
Evanston Insurance is represented in the action by attorneys Stacey Petrek, Monica T. Sullivan and Christopher J. Nadeau, of the firm of Nicolaides Fink Thorpe Michaelides Sullivan, of Chicago.