Editor's note: This article has been revised from an earlier version to include responses from the law firms of Salvi Schostok & Pritchard and Smith Lacien, who are representing many clients in lawsuits against Sterigenics, including the two whose claims went to trial last fall; and to include details of a joint motion to stay filed by all parties on Jan. 9.
Medical device sterilizer Sterigenics will pay more than $400 million to nearly 900 plaintiffs, ending the threat of lawsuits and trials that could drag on for many years, stemming from claims that emissions from the company’s Willowbrook plant caused cancer in those living and working nearby.
Sterigenics, through its corporate parent, Ohio-based Sotera Health, announced the settlement deal in a release Monday evening.
The deal to end the lawsuits was confirmed in a motion to stay, which would put all proceedings on hold to allow for the settlement to be approved. The motion was filed in Cook County court late in the evening on Jan. 9 by attorneys for all parties.
That motion comes days before another plaintiff, identified as Heather Schumacher, was scheduled to take their claims to trial, with more scheduled to begin later this spring.
The settlement also comes despite a Cook County jury’s decision to award just one of the plaintiffs $363 million in the first case to go to trial last fall.
News of the settlement also came the same day Sterigenics filed notice of its intent to continue to fight that verdict on appeal.
"The parties have reached agreements in principle that, subject to certain conditions and acceptance by individual Plaintiffs, will resolve all cases in Illinois arising out of the operation of the Willowbrook sterilization facility, including the two cases that have been tried, the case where trial is scheduled to begin this wekk, the trials scheduled for later this year, and all other pending cases," the parties wrote in the motion to halt proceedings.
Additional terms of the settlement were not yet available. However, Sotera said the settlements are subject to “substantially all of the plaintiffs” consenting to opt-in to the settlement, and agreeing to accept “their individual settlement allocations.”
That basic outline of the settlement was confirmed by attorneys at the law firm of Salvi Schostok & Pritchard, a Chicago firm helping lead the litigation against Sterigenics and representing many of those who have filed suit.
The Salvi firm characterized the terms by saying: "Plaintiffs... will be eligible to participate in the settlement program where they will receive an individual settlement offer based on the documented facts of each individual case. Once a participation threshold is met, Plaintiffs in the Sterigenics litigation will be compensated."
It is not yet known how those funds will be allocated, or how many of the plaintiffs will need to “opt-in” to authorize the settlement.
Sotera said it expects the process of completing the settlement agreements to take 90-120 days.
“This agreement represents a remarkable achievement for the Plaintiffs and the people of Willowbrook who have fought so hard over the past four years," said attorney Patrick A. Salvi II, in a prepared statement released Tuesday afternoon. "Our hope is that hundreds of deserving families will soon be fairly compensated under this agreement and will avoid both the uncertainty of trial and the risk that their cases might be delayed for years, if not decades.”
In its statement, Sterigenics, through Sotera Health, said it continues to maintain that its Willowbrook plant “did not pose a safety risk to the community in which it operated.”
However, it said the mounting costs of defending itself against hundreds of lawsuits, coupled with the “significant costs of posting a large bond” to guarantee the $363 million single verdict, and the public relations damage caused by “years of biased media coverage in the greater Chicago area,” led the company to decide to pay $408 million to bring the lawsuits to an earlier end.
Sotera said it would finance the settlement through incremental debt financing in the first half of 2023 and would deposit the funds into an escrow account by May 1.
In the release, Sotera said the deal would allow it to opt out on the deal yet, under certain conditions. For instance, should any law firm currently representing clients in lawsuits against Sterigenics move to file more than five new lawsuits against the company, Sotera Health could pull the plug on the deal, the company said.
“The agreements provide a pathway to comprehensively resolve the claims pending against Sterigenics and Sotera Health LLC in Illinois and thereby enable the Company to focus its full attention on operating the business, serving our customers and delivering on our mission of safeguarding global health,” Sotera said in its release.
Lawsuits against Sterigenics have surged into Cook County court since 2018, led by many of Chicago’s top personal injury lawyers. The lawsuits were filed on behalf of people from Willowbrook and surrounding communities in Chicago’s western suburbs. The lawsuits claimed the plaintiffs suffered cancer or other maladies, allegedly caused by emissions of ethylene oxide (EtO) from Sterigenics’ Willowbrook plant.
In all, the company said around 870 lawsuits remain pending against Sterigenics in Cook County Circuit Court and Chicago federal court over the Willowbrook EtO emissions claims.
The lawsuits were spurred in large part by a report released in 2018 by the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR). The report asserted Sterigenics’ emissions from using EtO had significantly increased the risk of cancer in and around Willowbrook.
Sterigenics and its predecessors used the Willowbrook plant from the mid-1980s until 2019 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 medical procedures.
Sterigenics and others in the medical device industry have asserted the use of EtO is essential for properly sterilizing medical devices and ensuring patient safety 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.
Since the first lawsuits were filed, Sterigenics has consistently argued its emission levels never violated the terms of permits issued by both the state and federal governments.
However, the company’s Willowbrook plant has remained closed since the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency, at the direction of Gov. JB Pritzker, ordered it shut down, after activists and trial lawyers called for action.
Sterigenics has argued the lawsuits represent attempts by trial lawyers to extract hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars from Sotera, for emission levels that were explicitly approved by government regulators.
The company has also maintained plaintiffs cannot scientifically support their claims against Sterigenics, as the company has pointed to evidence that showed EtO levels in and around Willowbrook were too low to produce the catastrophic effects alleged by plaintiffs.
After four years of pre-trial proceedings, the first cases against Sterigenics went to trial this fall, resulting in a split. The plaintiffs had sought to move the cases forward collectively, but a Cook County judge determined the claims presented by the plaintiffs were too different for a single trial.
In the first trial, a jury awarded plaintiff Susan Kamuda $363 million. Kamuda was represented by Salvi and others at his firm.
However, in the second trial, on behalf of plaintiff Teresa Fornek, a jury found in favor of Sterigenics. Fornek was represented by attorneys with the firm of Smith Lacien, of Chicago.
In the weeks that have followed, the two sides have continued to spar in court. Most recently, they argued over how to proceed with new trials.
A different Cook County judge decided to consolidate the cases into groups, in response to concerns by plaintiffs’ lawyers that many of the plaintiffs would likely die before their cases ever made it to trial.
Sterigenics contested that decision, saying the judge’s decision would put them at a disadvantage at trial, because jurors would operate under the “powerful but erroneous impression that the number of plaintiffs must mean those plaintiffs’ cancers had the same cause.”
At the same time, Sterigenics had vowed to continue its fight to undo the $363 million for Kamuda, saying the verdict did not “reflect the evidence presented in court” but was driven by juror “passion” and “class prejudices.”
After a Cook County judge denied their motion to undo the verdict, the company filed a notice to appeal on Jan. 9, the same day the settlement was announced.
A company spokesperson said more details about the settlement will be forthcoming.
Chris Ruys, a spokeswoman for Smith LaCien, which represents several plaintiffs, confirmed attorneys at the firm had seen Sterigenics’ news release about the settlement, but had no further comment at this time.