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Posted on 10/10/2002 7:06:14 AM PDT by FryingPan101
Borderland Thursday, October 10, 2002
German soldiers file damage suit in El Paso
German soldiers who have cancer for which they blame radiation from radar equipment filed a lawsuit Tuesday in a state court in El Paso to seek damages from U.S.-based manufacturers.
The class-action suit was filed on behalf of more than 450 soldiers from the German Bundeswehr and other NATO armies, said Reiner Geulen, a lawyer based in Berlin.
El Paso lawyer Enrique Moreno represents the plaintiffs.
Moreno said the lawsuit was filed in El Paso because the injury to the soldiers allegedly occurred while they were stationed at Fort Bliss, where the German air force has operated an air defense school for several decades. Moreno said Fort Bliss is not a party to the suit and has not been accused of any wrongdoing.
"We think there is an obligation to warn and manufacture a product not to harm people, and that is the obligation of the manufacturer," Moreno said.
Moreno said several of his clients who are named in the class-action suit still live in El Paso.
"One of the gentleman we believed died from exposure to this radar lived in El Paso, and his widow and children still live here," Moreno said.
German soldiers and their families have long sought damages for illnesses such as leukemia and testicular cancer that they believe result from poor protection against radiation from radar equipment.
Geulen, who says he represents 822 former soldiers, filed a lawsuit in March against the German Defense Ministry after government compensation failed to materialize. About 185 of his clients have died of their ailments, he said.
In the U.S. suit, lawyers for soldiers who worked on U.S.-made radar equipment between 1958 and 1994 and their relatives are seeking damages from the manufacturers, which include Raytheon, General Electric Co., Lucent Technologies, Honeywell International and ITT Industries.
The companies are accused of "failing to adequately shield" transmitter tubes that emitted "dangerous amounts of X-ray radiation," according to the suit. The suit alleges that the companies failed to warn users of the subsequent health risks or instruct them to take wear protective clothing or limit periods of exposure.
Officials of General Electric, based in Fairfield, Conn., could not be reached for comment.
Raytheon spokesman David Polk declined to comment, saying company officials hadn't yet seen the lawsuit.
Many military technicians were sent to El Paso for training on how to operate and maintain the equipment, and many of the defendant companies have subsidiaries there, Geulen said in a statement.
The lawyer didn't say how much his plaintiffs were seeking, but said the lower limit of awards in U.S. courts lies between $1 million and $2 million a person. A verdict is likely at the end of next year, he said.
In the suits filed in March in two German courts, six claimants are seeking damages of at least $59,000 each.
Last summer, the German government admitted a link between health problems and lax safety for personnel who worked with the equipment during the Cold War, after an official report said as many as 1,000 had since fallen ill.
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How does the Onion stay in business with this kind of competition?
I am no friend of the lawsuit lottery, but if this allegation is true, then these guys do deserve something. THis isn't like frivolous lawsuits resulting from someone plaming electric power lines for cancer. Letting people be exposed to x-ray radiation unnecessarily is serious. If this is true, my convcern is what degree of exposure and was it enough to statistically cause cancer?
Innaresting.
I wonder if there is a list online somewhere of Foreign Countries that have Air Defense Schools Operating in America or Troops stationed here for that matter.(What???) It really makes me wonder about our great US of A.
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