By David Wallechinsky and Noel Brinkerhoff
United States - ExxonMobil
is suing to recover a document it accidentally gave to attorneys of
plaintiffs who are battling the oil company in court over
environmental-related injuries. ExxonMobil wants the information
returned because it supposedly contains evidence that the corporation
deliberately withheld air sample data.
Over the past decade, ExxonMobil has been sued by thousands of
people who claim that they or deceased members of their family were
harmed by exposure to radioactive materials that accumulated in pipes
used in the production of oil. In March 2010, a jury in New Orleans
ruled that 16 former employees of Intracoastal Tubular Services (ITCO)
who had cleaned the pipes without being warned they were dangerous
deserved compensation for increased risk of cancer. Exxon had previously
been forced to compensate the owners of the property where the pipes
were cleaned. One of the property owners happened to be a retired state
judge, Joseph Grefer. When the state 4th Circuit Court of Appeal upheld
that judgment, the justices called Exxon’s behavior “reprehensible.”
On August 28, 2008, Exxon inadvertently turned over a 1988
memorandum from Exxon attorney Rosemary Stein regarding the results of
air sample tests performed by an ExxonMobil industrial hygienist on an
experimental pipe cleaning unit. The oil giant is trying to stop the
document from being used in a punitive damage claims trial due to
commence on March 5.
The attorneys being sued after refusing to return the paperwork are
Timothy Falcon and Jeremiah Sprague of the Falcon Law Firm, and
attorney Frank M. Buck Jr. The Falcon firm was the one that received the
information by mistake, and then shared it with Buck.
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