| Dow can meet
with potential plaintiffs |
|
| Kathie Marchlewski , The Midland Daily News | 11/09/2003 |
| Medical, insurance and
employment histories won’t be needed for courts to decide if the people living along
the Tittabawassee River flood plain share a common problem. Saginaw Circuit Court Judge Leopold Borrello has ruled that 179 plaintiffs in the dioxin lawsuit do not have to turn personal information over to The Dow Chemical Co. for use in its defense of the potential class-action lawsuit. "The commonality and typicality between plaintiffs and members of the proposed class is that they all reside in the alleged flood plain and that the area was infested with dioxin allegedly cause by the defendant (Dow)," Borrello stated in his opinion and order. "Whether individuals may have smoked, been exposed to asbestos or other chemicals or carcinogens is not necessary for the court to determine commonality." A hearing to determine whether the case should be given class-status is scheduled for Jan. 27, 2004. Dow had argued that medical and other histories would be important to deciding if plaintiffs could claim the entire proposed group of about 2,000 had suffered similar injury to property value and "significant" health risk because of exposure to dioxin. In other court proceedings, Borrello ruled that Dow should be allowed to meet with residents of the flood plain who are not part of the ongoing suit. He noted that he wasn’t pleased that company made plans to meet with Tittabawassee River flood plain property owners without court permission, but decided to let them do it. Dow’s attorneys are planning to interview people who are eligible to become part of the potential class-action suit to determine if they and named plaintiffs share a common matter that could be addressed in court. The company also has plans to conduct informational meetings separate from the litigation. Plaintiffs leery of Dow’s intentions had argued it should not be meeting with property owners until the judge made a ruling. |
|
| İMidland Daily News 2003 | |
For additional articles like this one, go to the Tittabawasse River Watch web site www.trwnews.net for complete coverage of the Tittabawassee River Dow Chemical dioxin contamination saga. . The Newspaper / Media page of our site contains an extensive archive of media articles dating back to January 2002. The source organization's web site link is listed to the right of the article, visit often for other news in our area. The Newspaper / Media page may be accessed by scrolling down to the bottom of the CONTENTS section and clicking on the Newspaper/Media link.