SAGINAW Attorneys representing those residents were back in court Thursday, asking a
retired Saginaw County judge to sign an order granting class action status to
the lawsuit.
The lawsuit, Henry vs. Dow Chemical, was filed in March of 2003. We should know
in the next two weeks how the lawsuit will proceed.
Attorneys for the plaintiffs in the dioxin lawsuit are asking Judge Leopold
Borrello to sign an order granting class-action status. Attorney Bruce Trogan
believes it will be a simple legal motion, but nothing has been simple in the
lawsuit known as Henry vs. Dow Chemical.
"I believe, with Dow's history, they are going to attempt to make it more
difficult than it is," Trogan said.
Borrello gave the lawsuit class-action status more than five years ago, but in
2009, the Michigan Supreme Court ordered Borrello to look at the decision again.
Dow Chemical attorney Doug Kurtenbach says a lot has happened in the last few
years, including dioxin testing on hundreds of properties, which show varying
levels of dioxin, a chemical which has been shown to cause cancer.
"Thousands of them they cannot show have higher than background levels on them,
they know, it, but they want you to sign that order because then that gives them
2,500 plaintiffs, instead of 100 or 500," Kurtenbach said.
If it becomes a class-action lawsuit, Kurtenbach says it will be impossible to
litigate with so many plaintiffs. Dow Chemical says its ready to go to court
with the 150 or so property owners along the Tittabawassee River suing the
company over dioxin contaimination.
Judge Borrello said Thursday he would clarify his earlier ruling in two weeks.
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