Court throws out $926 million Rocky Flats award

[n2doc]

By SOLOMON BANDA, Associated Press Writer – Fri Sep 3, 10:43 pm ET

DENVER – A $926 million award to thousands of Colorado homeowners in a lawsuit involving plutonium contamination from a now-defunct nuclear weapons plant was thrown out Friday by a federal appeals court.

A three-judge panel also tossed the jury verdict in the case and ruled that homeowners failed to prove their properties were damaged or that they suffered bodily injury from plutonium that blew onto their properties from Rocky Flats northwest of Denver.

The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver ruled that the jury reached its decision in February 2006 on faulty instructions that incorrectly stated the law.

The judges wrote that under the law, the presence of plutonium on properties south of the plant, which closed in 1989 for safety and environmental reasons, at best shows only a risk — not actual damages to their health or properties.

"'DNA damage and cell death' do not constitute a bodily injury in the absence of the manifestation of an actual disease or injury," the panel wrote, later adding: "Plaintiffs must necessarily establish that plutonium particles released from Rocky Flats caused a detectable level of actual damage."


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100904/ap_on_bi_ge/us_rocky_flats_lawsuit

Sticking it to the little people again...

[fasttense]

1. Our lovely injustice system

where corporations may pollute and murder for profit while normal people, well they can just die.

We have a very corrupt legal system designed to protect the uber wealthy. Sounds like a Banana Republic to me.

[Angry Dragon]

2. "'DNA damage and cell death'

I guess unless there are bodies laying in the streets then no harm done.

And then you would have to prove that plutonium caused it.

[safeinOhio]

3. The Seventh Amendment

“In Suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise re-examined in any Court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law."

[Tesha]

4. Remember this the next time the pro-nuke folks are here telling us that...

...there's no nuclear waste problem and that the
Nuclear Industry Complex (including the Department
of Energy's weapons programs) is well-regulated
under current law.

Tesha

[laylah]

5. I drove by this

facility many a time from 1978-1980. Spoke with workers at the bar just north of the gate. This ruling is reprehensible; but then, should we expect anything other than INjustice from the powers that be?

This is so wrong on so many levels! :mad:

Jenn