You can sue for injuries caused by hazardous substances

By Lawrence Landskroner

The manufacturer or the maker of articles for sale in the marketplace, containing deadly ingredients or dangerous qualities, owes a duty to those into whose hands the articles may come, to suitably convey a notice of the danger so that the proper precautions may be taken to prevent wrongful use and a consequent injury. If the product is hazardous or there are hazardous conditions about the product, there must be warnings of the danger. The failure to warn properly places a duty on the manufacturer, which if breached, would give rise to a cause of action. In many such cases there were warnings, but if they were found to be inadequate, the same degree of care rests on the manufacturer. The manufacturer must provide full, fair and adequate instructions as to the proper use of the product. When the directions or warnings are not adequate, it is their responsibility. In addition, the manufacturer must foresee probabilities of misuse or improper use. There is a law called the Federal Hazardous Substances Labeling Act which requires warnings and instructions for certain classifications of products. City, state, and federal rules also regulate industrial safety and the use of products. There are many other sources of poisons and emissions that are polluting the populace and killing us, which are still being produced and being disseminated to the public. For example, Goodyear and Borden's are producing polyvinyl products that give off deadly fumes when heated. These fumes, as little as one or two parts per million over a period of time, can cause people to develop angiosarcoma, cancer of the liver. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, about three million pounds of vinyl chloride gas, out of a total of five to six billion pounds produced each year, escapes into the atmosphere.

Other industrial carcinogens (cancer causing agents) such as beryllium and asbestos are not only hazards within the fac- tory but invade the workers' homes and neighborhoods near the plants. Unfortunately, under the Reagan Administration, there was to be a severe curtailment of the enforcement abilities of the various governmental agencies assigned to protect us in our environment. Even though they are not doing an adequate job now, they will do an even less effective job as time goes on. The funds of some of the investigating groups engaged in protecting the public have been, or will be curtailed. Among them are the Occupational Safety & Health Administration (OSHA) of the Department of Labor, the National Institute for Occupational Safety & Health (NIOSH), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Center for Disease Control (CDC), the National Institute of Health (NIH), and some private organizations.

Some of the research done by experts such as Dr. Maltoni (of the Bologna Cancer Institute in Italy) indicates that as little as one or two parts per million of polyvinyl gas can cause cancer in rats. Some of his testimony has been disregarded or hushed up by "industrial military" corporations which would suffer if this general information were disseminated widely among the populace. There are a host of industrial products which cause shortening of life or cancer. They are: cadium, lead, germanium, antimony, tellurium, beryllium, and a form of beryllium called nickel carbon.

Cancer comes from exposures to some of these items, as well as arsenic and selenium. Cadmium and lead, nickel from burning coal, oil, and diesel fuel, antimony a beryllium from coal occurs in polluted cities. Mercury also causes significant toxicity and death. Deaths from heart disease are related to vanadium. High blood pressure and cancer of the digestive system have been related to nickel and vanadium. Cancer of the lung is related to titanium in the air. Airborne arsenic, tin, and lead can cause serious health problems.

Every year, man puts into his air about 28 million tons of carbon monoxide which is partly burned carbon; sulfur dioxide in the air changes to sulfuric acid which irritates the lungs, reddens the eyes, and acidifies the soil. The particles contain additional toxic elements which cause high lung cancer rates in cities. Sulfur dioxide in the air is associated with deaths in general, notably in deaths from diabetes, heart disease, cancer, and especially cancer of the digestive system. In addition, breast cancer and birth defects are caused by nitrogen dioxide, also found in the air.

The air in Cleveland, for example, is polluted by Republic Steel, Cleveland Electric Illuminating Company, and other related industrial plants. These companies seem to have a total disregard for the laws because the laws themselves are not properly enforced. If more testing were done, greater mortality, higher incidence of lung cancer, and other related diseases would be on the decline. These problems occur as a direct result of the pollutants poured into the air by these and other similar industries.

Some other areas to be considered are the factories and mines that emit wastes of cyanides, copper, arsenic, lead, and cadmium. These wastes kill every living thing with comes into contact with them. Some of the acids, alkalis and cadmium salts from tanning and electrical plating, cyanides, phenols, sulfites, sulfates, tar, acids ammonia, copper, lead, and perhaps zinc from mine dumps are dumped indiscriminately in rivers already polluted by sewage. Oil films prevent the water from absorbing oxygen from the air and detergents cover the rivers with foam, producing aquatic deserts and silent streams.

Some of the results of methyl mercury poisoning include: mental disturbances; loss of balance; impaired gait, speech, sight, and hearing; difficulty in swallowing; and degeneration of local areas of the brain. Man made radiation from bombs, nuclear reactors, and atomic power plants cause cumu- lative hazards to human health which causes leukemia, cancer, and birth defects.

One of the largest causes of mortality and disability is the exposure of humans to lead, which is in the air we breathe and the food we eat. We absorb about 10 percent of the lead we eat and about half of what we breathe. In our cities today, the air is loaded with lead and small particles. According to Dr. Clair Patterson of the California Institute of Technology, Americans have about 100 times as much lead in their bodies as they should have. The vested interests, the oil industry, will say that there's not much lead in the environment, but lead poisoning has been known about for hundreds of years. Children eat lead paint peeling from old walls and porch railings resulting in serious mental retardation. Painters and solderers get colic and paralysis. Spring and lake water dissolves lead from pipes and produces lead poisoning, in time. When oil is burned, 25 percent of the lead goes into the atmosphere. Lead has been found in lobsters, geese, rice, and breakfast cereal. The lead added to gasoline is polluting our bodies as well. Some of the effects of lead poisoning include loss of weight, pneumonia, susceptibility to infection, and death by a host of causes.

If a person were a non smoker and lived next to an industrial plant that was polluting the air, and then had erosion of his lungs or another medical condition caused therefrom, he would have a cause of action against the industry polluting the air. As a matter of fact, in this type of case, a class action suit can be brought against the of- fending industry. In a class action, the entire populace is represented by one injured person, and attorney's fees and expenses will be recovered if the suit is won against the wrongdoing defendants.

The legal responsibility is very simple. If a corporation or an individual is polluting the air, water, or creating other environmental hazards directly or indirectly, and it could be anticipated that people would receive injuries from this activity, they must be held accountable. It is no defense that the defendant relied on industry customs or that someone else has done it before him, whether it be failure to warn by appropriate warning label, by inadequate instructions, or by creating a defect, the proof required is relatively simple. All one needs is proof of some physical damage attested to by a physician or doctor indicating the causative effect of the injury, testimony by an expert toxicologist, pharmacologist or someone who will explain to the jury the kinds of dangers vested upon him, and a set of facts which go along with the foregoing. Facts can be circumstantial and the law makes no distinction between circumstantial evidence and direct evidence.

Perhaps if more people attempted to search for the cause of a disease and/or the cause of a death or injury, only a little investigative work would place the responsi- bility of the wrong doer. As of this date there is legal authority for the bringing of a lawsuit for the inhalation of asbestos fibers causing asbestosis, which causes cancer of the lung, and most of the other products named in this article which could be considered a hazardous substance.

Man must learn to live with himself. Each of us must take on the vested interests without allowing them to confuse us and cloud the issues of our survival if their profits are threatened. If we cannot do it through the legislature, we must do it through the courts, thereby placing the blame where it belongs.

The Law Firm of Lawrence Landskroner & Associates
Nationally Recognized Consumer Trial Advocates
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Cleveland, Ohio
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