The United States Supreme Court has agreed to hear arguments concerning litigation brought by two sisters who claim their cancer is connected to radioactive contamination in the St. Louis area dating back to the Manhattan Project.
In a notice made public Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court “invited” the U.S. Solicitor General to file written arguments in Cotter Corporation versus Mazzocchio.
The corporate defendants are seeking to reverse earlier rulings that went against them in lower courts and successfully petitioned the high court to hear the case.
The justices have “asked the government to weigh in on whether federal nuclear safety regulations trump state laws in a lawsuit brought by two sisters who claim to have developed blood cancer as a result of exposure to radioactive waste material,” the news service SCOTUSblog reported Monday.
Defendants Cotter, Commonwealth Edison and the St. Louis Airport Authority have opposed the litigation brought by the sisters in a case that came up through the Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit.
In September 2024, a three-judge panel for the 8th Circuit affirmed a federal district judge’s ruling to let the lawsuit by Nikki Steiner Mazzocchio and Angela Steiner Kraus proceed. The sisters claim the defendants improperly handled radioactive waste around the St. Louis area.
The sisters accused the defendants of improper handling of radioactive waste around the Coldwater Creek area, which was the subject of federal cleanup by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
In its July petition urging the high court to hear the case, the defendants argued several other federal appeals courts have disagreed with the 8th circuit’s position, and concluded that federal law overrides state law in such liability cases.