SOUR SATISFACTION
One of the crucial moments during this legal battle came June 8 of last year when U.S. District Court Judge Dickran Tevrizian, in the central California district, denied Boeing’s motion to dismiss radiation claims of the plaintiffs. Tevrizian ruled that it sufficed to show that exposure to radiation was a “substantial factor” in contributing to a plaintiff’s injury while acknowledging that each individual case would have to prove it was based on the “factual circumstances.”
The decision was a green light for Cappello. “We have filed 11 expert reports including emissions on dioxins, hex chrome, radiation, and TCE, risk-dose experts, medical-toxicity experts,” he wrote in a March 22 e-mail to CityBeat. “Our medical expert has now opined, on over 90 individual cases, that their cancers/diseases are directly linked to the three Rocketdyne facilities’ toxic air emissions (cooling towers for hex chrome, SRE [sodium reactor] meltdown for radioactive iodine, and TCE usage).”
As the hearings edged toward the sealed settlement, both sides clashed over the use of experts. Cappello had to replace Lappe, who died of brain cancer, with three experts that Boeing’s lawyers sought unsuccessfully to exclude from trial. Cappello failed in an attempt to introduce evidence that milk consumed from local Simi Valley dairy cows had caused his plaintiffs to ingest radioiodine, going so far as to produce an archival Russian spy satellite photograph that showed the cows grazing in a Giacopuzzi Dairy pasture near SSFL. Judge Tevrizian dismissed that as “too speculative” and strongly urged the parties to settle, which they did a month later.
“I only wish the rest of the community got satisfaction from this confidential settlement,” wrote longtime Rocketdyne activist Marie Mason in an e-mail. “Cappello said his experts found links between exposures from toxics from the site to illness, but the rest of us will never hear this information with a locked-and-sealed settlement. What else can we expect from Rocketdyne – pay off and walk away saying they have done nothing wrong. What a cop-out for the attorney and Rocketdyne. So much for satisfaction.”
Critics of the settlement insist that crucial information is now lost with the confidentiality of the agreement. “Our organization is very concerned about the health of people exposed to toxins released by Rocketdyne,” said Jonathan Parfrey of Physicians for Social Responsibility. “The settlement seals evidence, which may link Rocketdyne’s contaminants to local health problems. Is this the best way to protect the public? I don’t think so.”
Not everything that takes place in litigation is filed with the court is the lawsuit doesn’t proceed to trial, including deposition transcripts. But, according to Cappello, only the settlement is sealed and the evidence is available to the public. When told by a reporter that the vast majority of this evidence, evidence even used in this article, is currently online and just a walk away from his downtown Los Angeles office in the District Court, Parfrey seemed surprised. “From what I understand, that material is not available,” he said.
