Staff Reports
WC Monitor
1/29/2016
The attorney for the first downwinder claim for radioactive exposure from the Hanford Site in Washington state has objected to a proposal to close the case, saying his client lacks resolution 28 years after filing a claim. It is the only claim to be put forth after U.S. Judge William Fremming Nielsen called for anyone to come forward who objected to the final closure of the case. Oregon attorney Michael Bloom said the estate of Frieda Seaman filed the initial claim in 1988, saying radioactive emissions from Hanford during the 1940s and 1950s had caused Seaman to develop thyroid cancer in 1958 and contributed to her death from leukemia in 1986. Her sons filed the case in U.S. District Court in Oregon. Just months before it was scheduled to go to trial in 1990, and with the case largely prepared, it was consolidated with cases that had been filed in its wake in U.S. District Court for Eastern Washington. The case would swell to as many as 5,000 people around the year 2000, according to attorneys for the Hanford contractors who were sued. DuPont, General Electric, UNC Nuclear Industries, Atlantic Richfield and Rockwell International were named as defendants, but were indemnified by the federal government, making the federal government responsible for legal costs.
The number of claimants dwindled until the last major group of plaintiffs reached settlements in the case in October, Nielsen said in a court order. Now, “a single party, the estate of Frieda Seaman, has come forward to claim that the ‘In re Hanford’ action is not – as everyone else had been led to believe – finally over and ready to be dismissed,” said defense attorney Bradley Weidenhammer in a court document. “Seaman’s position comes as a surprise given that Seaman dropped out of this proceeding long ago.” He pointed out that the judge said during the last court hearing that he could see nothing in the legal record that showed active pursuit of the Seaman estate’s case. “Seaman disappeared from this case for the past decade and resurfaced only when the prospect of easy money presented itself” with settlement agreements being reached, Weidenhammer said. The case was weakened by the fact that Frieda Seaman potentially was exposed to radioactive iodine from Hanford only as an adult, and plaintiffs’ experts have confirmed the risk of thyroid cancer is largely limited to people exposed to radiation as children, Weidenhammer said. He is asking that the claim be dismissed.
Bloom, the Seaman estate’s attorney, said the court had been sending emails to the wrong address since spring 2015 and he only recently became aware that the case was closing down. Because his case had been prepared for more than two decades, there had been little for him to do in the matter, he said. He did participate at times through the decades, Bloom said. In 1994 he responded to the request of a previous judge assigned to the case to submit an itemized bill for time and costs incurred to date. At that time, counsels’ hours on the case exceeded 500, he said. “As a practical matter, however, Seaman was in a holding pattern,” he said. “The Seaman family has waited patiently for almost three decades to bring closure to their mother’s claim.” Bloom is asking that the case be transferred back to Oregon, where it was originally filed. If it remains in Eastern Washington federal court, the court should refer the case to mediation, he said. If that fails, a trial date could be set or the case could be referred for binding arbitration. Bloom has asked for oral arguments to be scheduled on the disposition of the claim. The attorney has not indicated what amount he is seeking, and terms of settlement deals to date have remained confidential.
Nielsen has not scheduled additional hearings on the case nor indicated what he might do next.
