After years in court, the first of hundreds of personal injury lawsuits against medical device sterilization company Sterigenics and other related defendants is scheduled to go to trial in July, over claims emissions from Sterigenics’ Willowbrook facility caused cancer.
However, with just over three weeks until that trial’s July 18 start date, lawyers for the plaintiffs say they will ask the Illinois Supreme Court to step in and take supervisory action against the Cook County judge presiding over the cases. They say Cook County Judge Marguerite Quinn has abused her discretion in ruling that the first trial will focus only on the claims of leading plaintiff Susan Kamuda, and cannot also include the claims of Kamuda’s son, who also has allegedly contracted cancer.
The plaintiffs have asked Judge Quinn to slap a hold on further proceedings in Kamuda’s case until the Illinois Supreme Court first renders a decision on their pending petition for supervisory order, ostensibly to override Quinn’s decision.
Patrick Salvi
| Salvi Schostok & Pritchard
Hundreds of lawsuits filed since 2018 are currently pending in Cook County Circuit Court against Sterigenics and several other defendants the plaintiffs believe should also be made to pay for the illnesses suffered by their clients.
These other defendants include Sterigenics’ parent Sotera Health; GTCR, a private equity firm with ties to former Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner; and food ingredients maker Griffith Foods.
The lawsuits assert Sterigenics and the other roster of defendants should be made to pay for allegedly emitting the chemical known as ethylene oxide (EtO) into the air in the region around Willowbrook, allegedly causing cancer and other illnesses in the those living and working nearby.
The lawsuits were spurred in large part by a report issued in 2018 by the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR). The report asserted Sterigenics’ emissions from the use of EtO had significantly increased the risk of cancer and other illnesses in Willowbrook and surrounding communities.
Sterigenics used the Willowbrook plant 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 and others in the medical device industry have asserted the use of EtO is essential to sterilizing medical devices and reducing infection risks in hospitals and operating rooms. They have noted no other sterilization method can replace EtO in safely and properly sterilizing large quantities of medical devices and tools.
The facility, however, has remained shuttered since early 2019, when newly elected Gov. JB Pritzker used the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency to order the plant closed.
Sterigenics has accused Pritzker and the IEPA of acting unlawfully in closing their plant. They noted no one has ever accused them of violating any emissions limits imposed by either the state or federal government.
In the meantime, Illinois enacted stringent new EtO emission limits, which prompted Sterigenics to abandon the fight to reopen the plant.
As more lawsuits were piled into Cook County court, the courts have consolidated the Sterigenics emissions-related lawsuits for the purposes of discovery and other common proceedings.
In recent months, those proceedings have involved arguments over requests for summary judgment from the various corporate defendants, and over requests from the plaintiffs to add demands for punitive damages against the defendants.
The proceedings have also centered on how trials over the cancer claims in the cases should proceed.
Judge Quinn angered plaintiffs when she rejected their attempts to consolidate cases for trial.
Instead, Judge Quinn ruled the cases should proceed to trial individually, beginning with the case of Susan Kamuda.
Plaintiffs had argued doing so would deny their clients their day in court, as many of the plaintiffs are allegedly so ill or elderly they may die before their case is prepared and called for trial.
Quinn, however, has continued to move forward pre-trial proceedings related to Kamuda’s case.
Quinn again drew a sharp reaction from plaintiffs this month when she refused to allow Kamuda to add the claims of her son, Brian Kamuda, to her trial.
Susan Kamuda’s lawyers had attempted to add Brian’s claims to Susan’s when they amended their complaint in the fall of 2021.
The Sterigenics defendants, however, asked the judge to sever Brian’s claims from his mother’s, saying their cancer claims were too different to be tried in the same proceedings.
Judge Quinn granted their motion to sever, agreeing that the Kamudas’ claims and cases were too different.
In that motion, they indicated they intended to file a petition with the Illinois Supreme Court, seeking to reverse Quinn’s decision on the motion to sever.
They asserted the decision denies the Kamudas their rights “to present their own case” in court.
They claimed a delay in the case to allow the Supreme Court to weigh in won’t harm the defendants, but could deny Brian Kamuda “his day in court,” as he “may succumb to his cancer.”
“Respectfully, this Court’s ruling constitutes an abuse of discretion and failed to follow the law,” the plaintiffs’ attorneys wrote in their emergency motion. “The Court’s ruling adversely affects the Kamudas and the other plaintiffs who have sued Sterigenics et al. for allegedly causing their cancers.”
A spokesman for the Illinois Supreme Court said the court has not yet received a petition from the plaintiffs.
On June 21, the Sterigenics responded to the emergency motion. They opposed the stay, saying the trial on Susan Kamuda’s claims should proceed.
They noted Judge Quinn’s ruling on the motion to sever is in line with her past rulings on the plaintiffs’ attempts to consolidate the cases for trial.
And they predicted the Illinois Supreme Court would deny the request for a supervisory order.
“… Plaintiffs’ insistence on trying Susan’s and Brian’s claims in a single trial has nothing to do with efficiency or Brian’s health (his cancer is in remission) and everything to do with the perceived tactical advantage of trying the claims of a mother and son together,” the defendants wrote.
“… Judge Quinn’s opinion is fully consistent with this Court’s prior rulings, in response to three separate motions, rebuffing Plaintiffs’ requests to consolidate cases for trial,” the defendants wrote. “It comes nowhere close to an abuse of discretion, let alone an error that would harm the administration of justice warranting the extraordinary remedy of a supervisory order.”
The Sterigenics defendants are represented by attorney Bruce R. Braun and others with the firms of Sidley Austin, of Chicago; Hollingsworth LLP, of Washington, D.C.; and Ropes & Gray, of Chicago.
Plaintiffs are represented in the cases by attorney Patrick A. Salvi II and others with the firms of Salvi Schostok & Pritchard, of Chicago; the Collins Law Firm, of Naperville; Miner Barnhill & Galland, of Chicago; Taft Stettinius & Hollister, of Chicago; Romanucci & Blandin, of Chicago; Hart McLaughlin & Eldridge, of Chicago; and Smith Lacien, of Chicago.