The Eighth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has granted corporate defendants until Nov. 27 to file a motion for rehearing in a case involving liability for Manhattan Project radioactive waste in the St. Louis area.
The appeals court granted the request Nov. 5 in litigation brought by Nikki Steiner Mazzocchio and Angela Steiner Kraus against Cotter Corp. and Commonwealth Edison Co. and others. Days earlier the 8th Circuit affirmed a federal district judge’s ruling refusing to toss out the complaint.
The court heard oral arguments in the case during September.
Mazzocchio and Kraus are sisters who believe they developed cancer as a result of radioactive waste and filed a public liability action under the Price-Anderson Act against defendants that handled the waste over years, according to an Oct. 30 appeals court ruling. The sisters brought claims of negligence and civil conspiracy against the defendants.
The defendants asked a U.S. District Court judge in Missouri to toss the complaint, arguing federal law preempts the plaintiffs’ state-law claims because federal nuclear dosage rules “provide the exclusive standard of care in a public liability action,” according to the appeals court document.
“The district court disagreed and denied the motions to dismiss, and we granted the defendants permission to appeal,” the appeals court said.
In explaining its reasoning, the 8th circuit appeals court said, “It’s worth mentioning that the NRC [Nuclear Regulatory Commission] itself has said that it doesn’t view compliance with its regulations as a safe harbor from state tort liability.”
In the 1940s, a company named Mallinckrodt processed uranium in downtown St. Louis and moved the waste to a site near St. Louis Lambert International Airport and Coldwater Creek.
“From there radioactive waste was transported to another site next to Coldwater Creek about a mile downstream,” the appeals court said.
When Cotter assumed control, much of the waste was mixed “into soil that was dumped in a landfill,” the court said.
Cotter, later bought by Commonwealth Edison, said the downstream site was decontaminated. But according to the plaintiffs, subsequent surveys of the area” showed otherwise.”
The plaintiffs claim radioactive waste under the defendants’ control contaminated Coldwater Creek and the surrounding properties, “including the areas where Plaintiffs lived, gardened, and frequented (and where Plaintiff Mazzocchio worked),” according to the appeals court.
