“They didn’t do what they said they were going to do,” an appeals judge wrote of two experts cited by people who say they were sickened by the defense contractor’s chemical contamination.
ATLANTA (CN) – A federal appeals panel on Tuesday effectively ended one of two pending cases accusing Lockheed Martin of exposing people to dangerous carcinogenic chemicals.
Three-judge 11th Circuit panel was found unanimously two experts failed to reliably apply their methodology in analyzing whether there is a link between chemicals released from Lockheed Martin’s weapons manufacturing facility in Orlando and injuries suffered by more than 60 people who say they developed cancer and other diseases due to exposure.
The panel upheld a lower Florida court decision and dismissed it arguments of the plaintiffs that the federal judge has wrongly analyzed the scientific literature provided by neurologist Dr. Daniel Kantor and Dr. Ronald Kendall, a toxicologist.
The ruling by Senior U.S. District Judge Roy B. Dalton Jr., who ruled that their methodologies were unreliable, struck down many of the plaintiffs’ claims, leaving them without expert reports to show that the chemicals caused their injuries.
“The district court reasonably held that Kantor did not reliably apply his methodology,” U.S. District Judge Andrew Brasher wrote on behalf of the panel. “And Kendall’s general opinion of causation simply relied on the opinions of other experts like Kantor and did not reliably apply any methodology.”
Kantor said he found that solvents including tetrachlorethylene (PCE), trichlorethylene (TCE) and styrene can cause multiple sclerosis and Parkinson’s disease.
But the panel said that even if Kantor reliably found a link between the chemicals and neurological conditions, he did not adequately explain his methodology.
“Although his dissenting report gave an example of ‘some of the factors’ he used to analyze some studies, he did not explain how he weighted those factors, what other factors he used, or even how those representative factors would apply to all the studies he evaluated,” Brasher wrote.
Kantor also failed to explain how he ranked the studies that supported his conclusions or how he used his professional judgment to arrive at the best explanation, the panel found.
Brasher also wrote that Kendall failed to “reliably conduct a background risk assessment,” an analysis of the risk members of the public have of suffering illness without exposure to the chemicals in question.
In a brief opinion concurring with the majority, U.S. District Judge Robert Luck summed up the problem with the two experts: “In other words, they didn’t do what they said they were going to do.”
Brasher and Luck, a fellow Trump appointee, were joined on the panel by U.S. District Judge Jill Pryor, a Barack Obama appointee.
When reached for comment Tuesday afternoon, a spokesman for the law firm Morgan & Morgan, which represents the plaintiffs, said: “We are disappointed with the court’s decision and are evaluating our options.”
The plaintiffs in both ACTIONSwho lived or worked near the facility say they now suffer from illnesses including breast cancer, thyroid cancer, leukemia, multiple sclerosis and Parkinson’s disease thanks to the “environmental nightmare” created by Lockheed Martin.
The plaintiffs alleged that the defense manufacturer dumped pollutants — many of them potent carcinogens — into the soil, air and groundwater surrounding the facility. They claimed that toxins “damage almost every human body system.”
Attorney Ryan Hopper of Greenberg Traurig, which represents Lockheed Martin, celebrated the decision Tuesday.
“Lockheed Martin welcomes the 11th Circuit’s decision, which affirms the company’s longstanding position that its Sand Lake Road Complex did not cause or contribute to adverse health effects among those who worked or lived in the area,” Hopper said.
The decision leaves one of the two consolidated cases closed. Some claims may move forward in the second case because Dalton only partially ruled in favor of Lockheed Martin.
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