Missouri Appellate Court Agrees That Partners In Smelting Facility Placed Profits Over Safety
Following a 13-week trial in 2011, a Missouri jury awarded sixteen children alleged exposed to lead poisoning from contaminated air and soil a total of nearly $40 million in compensatory damages and $320 million in punitive damages that was allocated among three owners of a lead smelter from 1986 to 1994. The children’s lawyers’ case was focused on the owners placing business profits over human safety. On Tuesday, the Missouri Court of Appeals issued an opinion of more than 100 pages highlighting the effects that lead poisoning has had on each child’s life and echoing the poignant evidence from the plaintiffs’ case that the jury focused on in finding that the defendants knew of the lead contamination in the community, knew of the dangers posed, but sacrificed the health of the children for greater profits.
The children sued each of the three defendants separately for negligence as a partner and then brought an additional claim against one of the three defendants on a “domination” theory seeking to hold that company liable because of its complete and pervasive control of the other partners. Although the jury found for the children on all counts, the Missouri Court of Appeals concluded that the trial court misinterpreted Missouri’s agency law in allowing the “domination” theory of liability to proceed to the jury. Nonetheless, the Court of Appeals upheld the compensatory damage award in its entirety. The court also upheld the punitive damage awards against the other two partners but remanded the punitive damage case against the defendant who allegedly “dominated” the partnership. The jury will still almost undoubtedly find punitive damages against this defendant based on its conduct as a partner but the claim will not be submitted to the jury alleging conduct both as a partner and as a dominating principal.
At trial, defense counsel had taken the position that the three owners were not involved in the operations of the smelter, but merely had ownership interests. Counsel told the jury, “We are being sued because of legalisms and because of contracts.” The Missouri Court of Appeals questioned the defense counsel’s tactics in explaining to the jury that the children plaintiffs are “all doing well” and spent many pages of its opinion detailing the specific issues that the children have faced throughout their life as a result of their injuries.
Please let us know if you would like a copy of the opinion or have any questions given that the opinion expands on many additional issues given its length and the amount of evidence heard by the jury.
