Lawyers' fees eat up much of settlement over toxic chemicals

By Ellen Barry
Los Angeles Times

	CHRIS STANFORD / THE WASHINGTON POST Snow Creek in 1966 was so toxic that fish dunked in it turned belly-up and died within 10 seconds.
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Finally, someone was interested in Anniston's west end, a poor neighborhood where toxic chemicals had leaked into the soil for decades. There were solicitous phone calls from lawyers, all-expenses-paid trips for medical tests, and the sudden promise that a federal lawsuit would lift their burden.

There was Johnnie Cochran — to most of them, the most famous lawyer in America — visiting from Los Angeles to hear their stories.

In the houses here, tentative dreams poked up: Brenda Crook, 50, dreamed of plastic surgery to cover the hole that cancer left in her leg, so she could wear skirts again. Elsie Stoudenmire, 68, dreamed of moving out of this poisoned neighborhood and never looking back.

All those dreams have soured. Late last month, lawyers in the federal lawsuit announced the disbursement of a settlement, an award of $300 million. In an agreement approved by the court, the 27 lawyers will split $120 million, with Cochran's firm taking about $29 million and a Montgomery law firm getting $34 million.

Once the lawyers and other expenses are paid, the awards for each of the Anniston plaintiffs will average $7,725, though some will receive more if their health damages are shown to be greater.

The news has brought a fresh wave of anger through Anniston, an industrial city of 24,000 in eastern Alabama. Plaintiffs complain, with barely suppressed rage, that their lawyers are greedy. They have also become venomous toward each other; some have stopped telling neighbors how much they have received. Environmental activist David Baker, who spent six years helping to arrange litigation on PCB contamination, has received death threats from plaintiffs who are certain that he has gotten rich.

"Everybody's angry," said Baker, founder of a grass-roots environmental group, Citizens Against Pollution. "No amount of money could ever satisfy the people of Anniston. There has been too much death."

Pat Tobin, a spokeswoman for Cochran's firm, said Cochran was unavailable for comment.

Harmful chemicals produced

It is a painful twist in a saga that has attracted national attention because of the gravity of the contamination, and because the victims were not warned of the risks until the mid-1990s, more than 20 years after the dangers of PCBs were known. The chemicals are thought to cause cancer and harm the immune, reproductive and nervous systems.
 
A plant now owned by a Monsanto spinoff produced polychlorinated biphenyls from 1929 to 1971. PCBs are fire-resistant chemicals used to insulate electrical equipment

People in the mostly black west end lived in the country way, catching their own fish, raising hogs and eating cabbages from gardens behind their homes.

One of those people was Denise Chandler's father, who was illiterate and worked washing chemical residue out of 50-gallon drums.

The family arranged life around the plant. On holidays, they laid down quilts and picnicked in the meadow beside it. In the mornings, to get to school, all six children took off their shoes and waded up to their knees through Snow Creek, which ran past the factory.

The littlest one, Manuel, always had to be nagged to get out of the water. He liked to catch turtles.

Chandler tells how Manuel "blanked out" and went into seizures at age 9. Doctors took a spinal tap and reported "unknown toxins" in his body. By his late 30s, he was so weak he could not lift his hand to feed himself. Near the end, completely blind, Manuel was overcome by psychosis and saw monsters coming for him. He died of heart failure last year at a nursing home, at 40.

The autopsy report listed his cause of death as "acute PCB intoxication in long standing" that damaged his pancreas, liver, kidneys and brain, Chandler said.

Lawyers get involved

It was lawyers, finally, who connected the dots for people like Chandler. In 1996, attorney Donald Stewart filed a lawsuit in state court involving 3,500 clients.

Activist Baker mobilized the community to file a second lawsuit in federal court and sought out Cochran.

Lawyers eventually signed up 18,477 plaintiffs.

The moment they were all waiting for came last August, when the Cochran firm announced a landmark settlement for both the state and the federal lawsuits of nearly $700 million.

When attorneys in both cases decided to settle, the state case had prevailed in court but the federal case had not gone to trial, said Robert Roden of the Birmingham firm Shelby, Roden & Cartee. Attorneys rushed because Solutia, the Monsanto spinoff, threatened to declare bankruptcy, jeopardizing awards altogether, he said.

About $75 million would go to a cleanup effort, and each group of plaintiffs would split $300 million. The 3,500 plaintiffs in the state case have received settlements in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

But federal plaintiffs were keenly disappointed to hear that once the lawyers receive their fees, the federal awards will be much lower — an average of $7,725, according to the fund administrator. A $25 million health clinic will be constructed with money from the settlement.

Roden said he was saddened by his clients' dissatisfaction, which was brought home forcefully, he said, during three community meetings where they "blasted him."

"It's serious, and sad," he said. "I'm real sorry for the people there. I wish I could say something to soothe their feelings."

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