Calling a Cook County judge’s decisions “absurd and antithetical to the notion of prompt justice,” personal injury lawyers representing more than 1,000 people who claim to have contracted cancer from emissions generated by medical device sterilization company Sterigenics, have formally asked the Illinois Supreme Court to step into their court fight to help them bring their cases to trial more quickly.
The petition, filed Monday, June 27, comes more than 10 days since the plaintiffs notified a Cook County judge of their intent to turn to the state high court. It also comes less than a month before the first case is scheduled to go to trial against Sterigenics and other allegedly related defendants.
“At every turn in the Sterigenics Litigation, the circuit court has refused consolidation or trial preference as prescribed by statute of any of the nearly 1,000 plaintiffs with cases before the court. Rather, the circuit court has insisted that each Sterigenics Plaintiff … effectively stand in a single-file line to exercise their right to a jury trial,” the lawyers wrote in their petition to the Illinois Supreme Court.
J. Timothy Eaton
| Taft Stettinius & Hollister
“… This reflects a plan to clear the Sterigenics Litigation docket for trials that will take over 130 years. This is absurd and antithetical to the notion of prompt justice.”
The petition specifically asks the court to take action against the recent decision by Cook County Judge Marguerite Quinn to reject the attempt to allow plaintiff Susan Kamuda to bring to trial on July 18 not only her cancer claims against Sterigenics, but those of her son, as well.
The plaintiffs have also asked the Illinois Supreme Court to slap a hold on Kamuda’s trial, until the high court can fully address their petition for supervisory order.
More than 760 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 they claim have been 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, lawyers for plaintiffs and the various defendants have wrangled in court over requests from the defendants to bring the case to a quick end.
However, the various parties have also sparred over how potentially hundreds of trials should proceed.
Plaintiffs have sought to consolidate the cases for trial, as a kind of mass action.
They claim doing so would allow the courts to conclude the matter more quickly. They assert the cancer claims are all similar, as they all center on whether they can establish the cancers and other illnesses were caused from breathing emissions from the Sterigenics facility from 1984 to 2019.
They further assert the plaintiffs would be presenting essentially the same evidence, and the same experts would present testimony in all of the trials.
Judge Quinn, however, has refused to consolidate the cases, saying the cases are different enough to be required to advance to trial individually, beginning with the case of Susan Kamuda.
Quinn’s rulings have angered plaintiffs’ lawyers, finally boiling over into the petition to the Illinois Supreme Court when Quinn granted the request from the Sterigenics defendants to sever Susan Kamuda’s case from that of her son, Brian.
That same day, on June 16, the plaintiffs’ lawyers filed an emergency motion, asking Judge Quinn to put a hold on proceedings, as they planned to petition the Supreme Court for an order superseding Quinn’s decision.
In the petition to the state Supreme Court, they accused Judge Quinn of abusing her judicial discretion, failing to consider the alleged harm that decision would cause to the Kamudas. They asserted the judge’s decision would infringe “the Kamudas’ constitutional right to a prompt and fair trial.”
However, the plaintiffs went further, calling Quinn’s ruling part of a pattern of deciding against the plaintiffs.
“In the broader context, the Severance Ruling is symptomatic of the overall problem as to how justice is being administered in the Sterigenics Litigation,” the plaintiffs wrote in their petition.
Should the Illinois Supreme Court not step in now, the plaintiffs claimed, many of the plaintiffs “will die waiting for trial.”
The defendants have not yet replied to the Supreme Court petition.
However, in response to the plaintiffs’ emergency motion in Cook County court, the Sterigenics defendants defended Judge Quinn’s severance ruling in the Kamuda case, and called for the courts to reject the plaintiffs’ attempts to delay the upcoming trial.
“… 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 in a June 21 filing.
“… 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 firm of Salvi Schostok & Pritchard; J. Timothy Eaton, and others with Taft Stettinius & Hollister; and attorneys with the Collins Law Firm; Miner Barnhill & Galland; Romanucci & Blandin; Hart McLaughlin & Eldridge; and Smith Lacien.
All plaintiffs’ firms are from Chicago, except the Collins firm, which is based in Naperville.