Federal jury orders DuPont to pay $10.5 million in Ohio lawsuit

According to The News Journal, a federal jury has ruled against chemical giant DuPont in a lawsuit raised by Kenneth Vigneron, an Ohio man who lived near the company’s Washington Works plant in Parkersburg, W. Va. Vigneron claimed that a chemical used to produce one of DuPont’s signature products, Teflon, caused him to develop kidney cancer. The offending chemical’s name? C-8.
“The plaintiff was diagnosed with kidney cancer, one of the diseases linked to C-8 exposure by an independent science panel that conducted health exposure studies in the Mid-Ohio Valley from 2005 to 2013. A $70 million settlement in 2005 between DuPont and Mid-Ohio Valley residents in a class-action lawsuit resulted in the science panel’s creation.” reported the News Journal.
DuPont has said it will appeal.

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One lawyer’s battle against DuPont and its Washington Works plant’s alleged negligence was the center of a New York Times Magazine article by Nathaniel Rich in early 2016. The Wilmington News Journal also did a longform investigation of their own on the issue in April 2016.