Courthouse News Service has reported that a federal judge has approved the release of ten years worth of data, from a power plant to a family that claims that their young daughter's brain cancer was the result of groundwater contamination near their home.
The federal judge, in his ruling, stipulated that the plant can withhold some information.
J.S. and C.S., the parents of S.S., claim that their daughter's highly malignant brain tumor, called a medulloblastoma, was diagnosed three years after they moved to a home adjacent to the Exelon power plant in Grundy County.
The family claims that their daughter's illness was due to contaminated groundwater where the power plants had discharged radioactive material.
Exelon, in operating the Dresden Generating Station power plant, and Unitech Services Group, in operating a nuclear facility, must produce data from the discovery period of the child's cancer - two years before and three years after - from 1996 to 2004.
The family made a motion asking for information going back further - from the early 1990s. They have an witness expert that claims that radioactive materials can continue for a lengthy time in groundwater.
The expert wants to determine the impact of the facility on S.S.'s health.
The family is also asking that Exelon release data from a total of three other lawsuits, with similar charges, that were filed against Exelon in 2006.
Unitech filed a motion asking the family to provide specific facts of their case and a damages disclosure statement.
The family's motion was partially granted against Exelon but the court has also asked that they clarify and substantiate their claims against Unitech.
Of Exelon's objections, U.S. Magistrate Judge Nan Nolan said, "Given plaintiffs' expert's statement that contamination from the Dresden facility can persist for long periods of time, releases dating back to the early 1990s could be relevant to plaintiffs' claims or could lead to the discovery of admissible evidence."
The court may not allow data from the other lawsuits released to the plaintiffs - notably a facility in Braidwood. The family argued that the other cases "involve similar claims and can be used to establish a pattern or a habit or routine practice."
Nolan told the family, "Plaintiffs have not articulated how building a case against Exelon for negligence
at Dresden or fraud based on activities
at Dresden is in any way aided by information relating to the Braidwood facility." (The use of italics is from the original source.)
Nolan has advised the family to file a damage disclosure statement, though the family argued that it was not required in personal injury cases. Nolan wrote that they have to "provide a specific computation of their damages and make available documents and other evidentiary material on which the computation is based" and furthermore, "the modern attitude toward discovery regards secrecy as uncongenial to truth-seeking and trial by ambush as destructive of the overarching goal that cases be justly determined on their merits."
If you, or a family member, have been harmed by polluted air or water from a plant that is in close proximity to your home, you have grounds for a lawsuit. Contact a personal injury lawyer near you today!