Lawyer requests extension for McCullom Lake screening period
BY KEVIN P. CRAVER - kcraver@nwherald.com
McCullom Lake residents who missed the deadline to get medical monitoring under a court settlement in the brain cancer lawsuits might get a second chance.
Plaintiffs’ attorney Aaron Freiwald filed a motion in federal court asking it to extend the deadline for another year. It also asks to allow additional people who missed the sign-up period to apply.
The screening program is funded under a 2008 settlement with Modine Manufacturing. A class-action lawsuit filed by Freiwald in 2006 accuses the Ringwood plant, and neighboring Rohm and Haas, of causing brain and pituitary cancers in McCullom Lake by contaminating air and groundwater with carcinogenic vinyl chloride.
“This [filing] is a combination of the facts of the deadline itself passing, and a significant number of people calling and asking to be included,” Freiwald said.
Freiwald has filed 30 lawsuits to date in Pennsylvania state court on behalf of individuals with brain and pituitary cancers. Two of the most recent cases were diagnosed through the screening program.
Modine denies culpability for any illnesses, but agreed last year to settle its portion of the class-action lawsuit for $2 million. The settlement, approved Aug. 22, 2008, sets aside $1.4 million for medical monitoring, $100,000 for property value relief, and the remaining amount to pay for administering the settlement.
But only 114 of the 695 eligible people who sought the vouchers used them by the Aug. 22, 2009, deadline, according to court documents. About $1.2 million remains in the medical monitoring fund.
Philadelphia-based Rohm and Haas is fighting the lawsuits. Modine also has settled with most of the individual plaintiffs.
Modine attorneys filed a response stating that the company is not opposed to a limited time extension but that a full year is too long. Company attorney Albert Bixler asked U.S. District Judge Gene Pratter to extend the deadline to no later than March 1.
“Modine does not flatly oppose some short, reasonable extension of time for medical monitoring,” Bixler wrote. “The extension proposed by plaintiffs, however, amounts to a doubling of the original period provided for in the settlement and is in Modine’s view unreasonable.”
Bixler could not be reached for comment Friday.
Freiwald’s motion also asks that eligible people who missed the deadline be allowed to apply for vouchers to do so. Eligible people have called his office, and the Northwest Herald, during the past year seeking monitoring but never learned of it through direct mailing and advertisements in Chicago-area newspapers.
Vouchers would be paid on a first-come, first-served basis, if Pratter approves the recommended changes. Eligible people have to have lived in village limits for at least one cumulative year between Jan. 1, 1968, and Dec. 31, 2002.
The motion states that at least one person had a “suspicious” finding on his MRI and was told to follow up with a second, which he cannot afford. One of the plaintiffs diagnosed through the screening program has a meningioma brain tumor, and the other has a large pituitary gland tumor.
“I do think the program is a huge success, and I’m hopeful that the program will continue. I know two people who are very grateful that they got this benefit,” Freiwald said.
The 2008 settlement mandates that medical screening money unused at the end of the time period be allocated for a charity for the benefit of members of the class-action lawsuit.
Rohm and Haas has no legal standing in the Modine settlement, but filed a response recommending that Pratter not grant the extension. The response pointed out a Sept. 8 letter from the Illinois Department of Public Health that concluded that brain cancer rates in McHenry County as of 2006 are not above average. The letter did not examine rates specific to McCullom Lake.
“Any extension of the program runs the strong risk of creating unnecessary fear and anxiety in the targeted community,” Rohm and Haas attorney Ralph Wellington wrote.
Pratter has yet to rule whether the class-action lawsuit against Rohm and Haas can proceed to a civil trial. The first of the 30 individual cases in Pennsylvania state court could begin early next year.
What it means
Attorney Aaron Freiwald wants a federal judge to extend for another year the time period in which current and former McCullom Lake residents can seek medical screening for brain cancer under a 2008 court settlement. Modine Manufacturing, which settled the lawsuit last year, said it is willing to extend the period to March 1.
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