The Illinois Supreme Court has refused, for now, to step into the massive legal fight between medical device sterilizer Sterigenics and more than 1,000 people in and around suburban Willowbrook, who claim Sterigenics’ emissions gave them cancer.
On July 12, the state’s high court denied a petition from lawyers leading the cases against Sterigenics, in which they had asked the justices to intervene and place a hold on proceedings, as they continue their effort to bring the cases to trial in groups, rather than one at a time.
Instead, the ruling appears to clear the way for the first case to head to trial, individually, against Sterigenics beginning July 18, as scheduled.
In late June, attorneys for the plaintiffs suing Sterigenics filed petitions with the Illinois Supreme Court, asking the court to step in and override recent decisions from Cook County Judge Marguerite Quinn. The petitions specifically asked the court to act in its supervisory capacity against Judge Quinn, who they accused of violating the constitutional rights of their clients.
The petitions further asked the Supreme Court to place proceedings before Judge Quinn on hold, while they wait on the high court to decide on their supervisory petition.
The court has not yet ruled on the supervisory petition. However, the court formally rejected the request to stop the scheduled trial from proceeding July 18.
The Supreme Court did not explain its decision to deny the request to stay proceedings.
More than 760 lawsuits are currently pending in Cook County Circuit Court against Sterigenics and other related corporate defendants, who plaintiffs say should all be made to pay for the illnesses allegedly suffered by their clients.
Other defendants include Sterigenics’ corporate parent, Sotera Health; GTCR, a private equity firm with ties to former Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner; and Alsip-based food ingredients maker Griffith Foods. The lawsuits assert those other defendants all had ownership interests at some point since the early 1980s, when the Willowbrook sterilization plant first opened.
The lawsuits assert Sterigenics and the other roster of defendants should be held liable 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 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.
However, plaintiffs have also argued the cases should be consolidated for trial, as well. They claim doing so, treating the cases as a combined mass action, would allow the lawsuits to be completed far more quickly and efficiently. They assert the cancer claims are all similar enough, as they all center on whether they can establish the illnesses were caused by emissions from the Sterigenics facility from 1984 to 2019.
Judge Quinn, however, has refused to consolidate the cases, agreeing with the Sterigenics defendants that the cases are different enough to be required to advance to trial individually, beginning with the case of plaintiff Susan Kamuda.
In the Kamuda case, Quinn also granted the request from the Sterigenics defendants to sever Susan Kamuda’s case from that of her son, Brian. That decision, in turn, sparked the petitions from the plaintiffs’ lawyers to the Supreme Court, asking them to overturn Judge Quinn’s rulings.
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.”
They further asserted Quinn’s rulings were “symptomatic of the overall problem as to how justice is being administered in the Sterigenics Litigation.”
In a filing entered in Cook County court, though not in direct response to the supervisory petitions, the Sterigenics defendants took exception to the judicial abuse accusations against Judge Quinn.
They said the plaintiffs’ attempt to shut down the upcoming trial was all about obtaining a “tactical advantage” of trying multiple cases together.
Quinn’s rulings, they said, come “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.