W.Va. Jury Slams DuPont With $196 Million in Punitive Damages

DuPont must pay $196.2 million in punitive damages because of its negligence in creating a 112-acre polluted waste site near the town of Spelter, W.Va., according to a state court jury.

DuPont General Counsel Stacey Mobley said the company was "extremely disappointed" by the outcome of the case and would appeal the verdict.

"We believe there were many errors that deprived the company of a fair trial," Mobley said in a statement.

This was the final phase of a class-action lawsuit filed in 2004 by Lenora Perrine and nine other Harrison County residents.

The lawsuit accused DuPont of negligence, public and private nuisance, [0]negligence per se, and strict liability.

In the first phase, the Harrison County Circuit Court jury found that DuPont was negligent in allowing arsenic, cadmium and lead to be released from the former zinc smelter site in Spelter.

The jury also determined that the company created a private and public nuisance in the area around the site.

On Oct. 10 jurors decided in the second phase that DuPont should provide medical monitoring for about 8,000 residents who will receive diagnostic testing every two years for 40 years.

In addition to the $196.2 million punitive award in this third phase, the jury ordered DuPont to pay $55.5 million for the cleanup of communities surrounding the former smelter.

One of the plaintiffs' attorneys, Farrest Taylor of the Cochran Law Firm in Dothan, Ala., argued that DuPont cleaned up its own property but refused to address the contamination in the surrounding neighborhoods.

He said the pollution at the Spelter site was one of the worst environmental disasters in West Virginia.

DuPont said state and federal regulators had supervised its cleanup efforts and that the evidence shows no increased risk of disease or need for remediation in the area.

T.L. Diamond & Co. operated the zinc smelter from 1975 to 2001. Although the company was named as a defendant, the court previously ruled that DuPont was responsible for Diamond's conduct because of the chemical company's long association with the property.

DuPont has been involved with the site since 1899 when it bought several hundred acres to build a gunpowder mill.

Since then DuPont sold the property and bought it back several times. It resumed ownership of the site when the zinc smelter closed in 2001.

The company began a cleanup effort on the property that year after the discovery of high levels of arsenic, cadmium and lead, as well as zinc, iron and copper.

Exposure to these toxic chemicals and heavy metals can cause significant health problems, including lung cancer.

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