A medical device sterilization company appears to have reached a $48 million settlement to potentially resolve hundreds of lawsuits over claims emissions from a Waukegan plant caused people living and working nearby to develop cancer.
On March 4, attorneys for Isomedix, a subsidiary of Steris, filed a joint motion with attorneys representing some of the plaintiffs that have filed lawsuits against the company over its emissions of ethylene oxide gas (EtO), telling a Cook County judge that the parties have reached a settlement, which should end the need for several rapidly approaching - and potentially costly - jury trials.
The filing did not disclose any terms of the potential settlement. And the online court docket does not indicate any settlement has been filed.
However, in a release, Steris announced it had agreed to pay as much as $48.15 million to settle "the majority of personal injury claims related ethylene oxide emissions currently pending" in Cook County Circuit Court.
According to the release, the settlement would be binding and otherwise confidential.
Neither the court filing, nor the release, indicated how many lawsuits would be included in the settlement.
Steris Isomedix stressed the deal is not an admission of liability by the company. Steris has repeatedly said it denies the claims in the lawsuits.
The deal came shortly after an Illinois state appeals court rejected a bid by Steris Isomedix to delay a new trial over the claims brought against the company by a 70-year-old woman, who accused the company of having a role in causing her to develop cancer.
The woman, identified as Pamela Knobbe, had been the first of 275 plaintiffs to bring her claims against Isomedix to trial last fall. That trial, however, ended in a mistrial in January over jury issues, just as the jury was entering deliberations following weeks of testimony in court.
Isomedix is a subsidiary of Steris, an international medical device maker and distributor based in Ireland.
Knobbe's complaint is similar to nearly all of the other cases, as she claims she developed breast cancer as a result of breathing air allegedly contaminated by elevated levels of the chemical compound known as EtO allegedly caused by emissions from industrial facilities, including medical device sterilization plants, within a few miles of her home.
The lawsuits involving Isomedix also involved several other Lake County area companies known to have used EtO in either sterilization plants or other industrial settings for decades.
Other defendants named in Knobbe's complaint and those of hundreds of others filed in Cook County court include medical device maker and sterilizer Medline; medical device maker Cosmed; and specialty chemical company Vantage. All of the defendants operated plants utilizing EtO in and around Waukegan.
EtO is used widely in various industries, including many in operation in the Chicago area. In manufacturing, EtO serves as a key building block ingredient for a wide range of products, including antifreeze, recyclable packaging and nearly all products containing fiberglass. Derivatives of EtO area also used to make shampoo and other personal care items, as well as some pharmaceuticals.
Isomedix and other medical device sterilizers have used EtO to sterilize a wide variety of medical devices and tools, including surgical implants, like pacemakers and catheters, to ensure the do not increase patients' risk of deadly infections in the operating room.
Medical device makers have said EtO is all but essential to ensuring patient safety and preventing deadly infections in surgical patients.
Because of its widespread use, EtO is present in the ambient air throughout much of the Chicago region, according to air pollution measurements conducted by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Companies in the Chicago area and elsewhere, however, increasingly have been targeted in recent years for lawsuits from trial lawyers seeking big payouts and relying on government reports indicating long exposure to EtO could increase people's risk of contracting cancer.
In Illinois, the anti-ETO effort began when activists and trial lawyers targeted sterilization company Sterigenics, which operated a sterilization plant in west suburban Willowbrook.
The activists succeeded in persuading state officials to take action against Sterigenics and rewrite Illinois' pollution rules to impose severe limits on EtO emissions, ultimately forcing Sterigenics to pull out of Illinois, even though the company had to that point never violated state or federal EtO emissions limits.
Sterigenics ultimately agreed to pay $408 million to settle more than 870 lawsuits on behalf of people who lived in and around Willowbrook, who claimed that company's EtO emissions had caused cancer.
Another company, Griffith Foods, which formerly operated the Willowbrook sterilization plant, also agreed to pay $48 million to settle claims against them.
Those settlements came after two cases against Sterigenics went to trial. In the first trial, a jury ordered Sterigenics to pay a woman $363 million. In the second trial, however, a jury sided with Sterigenics, declaring the company shouldn't be liable for a different woman's illness.
Nationally, EtO-related actions have resulted in settlements estimated to be worth more than $700 million collectively, according to some published estimates.
Meanwhile, the separate Lake County-related legal actions have continued in Cook County court.
Medline, Cosmed and Vantage all agreed to settle the claims against them, leaving Isomedix and its parent, Steris, as the sole remaining defendants.
Throughout the process, Isomedix has contested the claims brought by Knobbe and other plaintiffs. They have argued, similarly to Sterigenics, that the levels of EtO its plant may have emitted fell within ranges permitted by state and federal authorities.
Further, they argued plaintiffs cannot scientifically support their claims against the company, pointing to evidence indicating atmospheric EtO levels were too low to produce the catastrophic effects alleged by patients.
Isomedix has also sought to contest the settlements reached by the other defendants. They have filed counterclaims seeking to force the other corporate defendants to share a portion of any liability established by a jury at trial or otherwise by the court.
Cook County Judge Frank Andreou, however, put Isomedix's contribution claims against Medline and other others on hold, as Knobbe's November trial date loomed.
That stay remained in place as Knobbe's new March trial date approached, as well.
And the state appeals court refused to grant Isomedix's request to lift the stay and crucially allow Isomedix to tell jurors the other companies had allegedly also emitted EtO into the air in Lake County and jurors should take that into account when deciding how much Isomedix should pay.
The appellate decision would have allowed Knobbe and other plaintiffs to move ahead with trials against Steris Isomedix this spring and summer, potentially leaving Steris at risk of big verdicts against them.
Isomedix is represented in the case by attorney Philip M. Oliss and others from the firm of Jones Day, of Cleveland and Chicago.
Knobbe is represented by attorney J. Eli Wade-Scott and others with the firm of Edelson P.C., of Chicago.
Other plaintiffs in the lawsuits against Steris Isomedix have also been represented by attorneys from the firms of Dovel & Luner, of Santa Monica, California; and Stinar Gould Grieco & Hensley, of Chicago.