New timetable set for lawsuits over toxic ills

A precedent-setting Alabama Supreme Court ruling will make it easier for people to seek compensation for medical problems caused by exposure to toxic chemicals at work, lawyers said Monday.

The court's 5-4 decision overturned a 29-year-old precedent known as the Garrett case, which said people have two years after their last exposure to a toxic chemical to seek money damages for resulting medical problems.

Now people will have two years to file suit after the medical problem becomes apparent, such as after a doctor's diagnosis, the court majority ruled in Griffin vs. Unocal.

The decision applies only to new cases and will not be applied retroactively, the court ruled.

"In some ways it is monumental; in some ways it is not enough," said Robert Palmer, lawyer for Brenda Griffin, whose lawsuit contends her husband David Griffin's exposure to benzene on the job led to his death of acute myelogenous leukemia a decade after he stopped working.

"Now it's justice for some," Palmer said. "Under Garrett, it was justice for none. I want to work until it is justice for everyone."

George Walker, a Mobile lawyer defending the companies Griffin sued, predicted the ruling would result in a flood of what he called bogus lawsuits from lawyers and workers seeking easy money.

"Some plaintiff lawyers will attempt to use this ruling to try to do with chemical exposure cases what they did in asbestos cases, and sue everybody they can seeking settlements," Walker said.

The state high court's ruling came a year after a court majority upheld the dismissal of a suit filed by Jack Cline over leukemia he developed after exposure to benzene at work in Bessemer.

Five justices voted to dismiss Cline's suit because he filed it six years after his final exposure but less than two years after he was diagnosed with cancer. He died nine days after the decision.

A change in the makeup of the Supreme Court after the 2006 elections led to the new rule announced Friday, lawyers said. Sue Bell Cobb beat Drayton Nabers Jr. in the chief justice race, becoming the court's lone Democrat.

In Friday's decision, Cobb joined three justices who had dissented in the Cline case, Champ Lyons Jr., Tom Woodall and Tom Parker. Rounding out the majority was Justice Glenn Murdock, a Republican elected in 2006 to fill the seat of retiring Justice Bernard Harwood.

A legal Catch-22:

The court in Friday's decision adopted the dissent Harwood wrote in the Cline ruling, which was announced a week before Cobb and Murdock took office.

"The two new justices turned the tide," Walker said.

Justices Harold See, Lyn Stuart, Mike Bolin and Patricia Smith voted to retain the old standard.

Harwood's dissent in the Cline case said the precedent the court had been using created a legal Catch-22.

Symptoms of health problems created by exposure to toxic chemicals often don't appear for years after the final exposure. People could not sue before the symptoms developed, but by the time the symptoms did develop, too much time had passed for a valid lawsuit.

David Griffin, for example, worked at the B.F. Goodrich tire plant from 1973 to 1993, when his lawyer contends he was exposed to benzene. But his cancer wasn't diagnosed until Sept. 9, 2003. His widow filed suit soon after he died in February 2004.

Cline was exposed to benzene during the 28 years he worked at Griffin Wheel Co. in Bessemer until he retired for health reasons. His cancer was diagnosed in 1999, six years after he stopped working. He sued less than two years after his diagnosis.

Palmer, who also helped represent Cline in his appeals, said Friday's ruling was vindication. He has championed attempts to change the strict limitations on lawsuits in the Legislature, and he has written several opinion pieces in state newspapers.

Palmer said he doesn't think Cline would be upset that he did not get the benefit of Friday's ruling. "He told me many times before he died that he wasn't in it for the money; he was in it to change the law," Palmer said.

Griffin's lawsuit now returns to Tuscaloosa County Circuit Court.

"We'll go back before Judge (John) England and conduct discovery and see if they can prove their case," said Walker, the defense lawyer fighting the suit. "My guess is they can't."

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