Bhopal pay-out likely to be highest—lawyer

Press, 3 January 1985, Page 6

Bhopal pay-out likely to be highest—lawyer

NZPA-AP New Delhi

A Chicago lawyer who spent 10 days investigating the legal position of victims and survivors of the Bhopal poison gas disaster says that the Union Carbide corporation would probably have to pay the highest damage award in American history. John McCauley, arrived in New Delhi en route to the United States with powers of attorney from a handful of gas victims authorising him to pursue their claims in the American courts. The cases were referred to him by Indian colleagues. “With a total of perhaps 200,000 people killed, crippled or otherwise harmed by the escaping methyl isocyanate gas, Union Carbide and the other corporations involved must expect to pay the largest amount in damages ever awarded by American courts for a single incident,” he said.

. Indian officials have complained that American lawyers or' their Indian agents were scouring tne stricken city in Madhya Pradesh state for possible clients in violation of some American states’ rules against soliciting. Ladli Sharan Sinha, chief legal adviser to the Madhya

Pradesh state Government, warned the survivors last week against allowing American lawyers to habile

their claims because they were “hirelings of Union Carbide” and that they were likely to settle out of court against the interests of their clients. The state Government announced on Sunday that it would file class action claims in the United States on behalf of about 200,000 people, one-fourth the city’s inhabitants, who suffered fatal or other effects from the leak at the Union Carbide-owned plant in Bhopal on December 3. Mr McCauley said claims

totalling more than SUS3SO billion ($721 billion) against Union Carbide were pending or being prepared for submission to courts in California, Illinois, Louisiana, New York, Texas, Nevada, Connecticut, West Virginia and the district of Columbia. A panel of Federal judges will meet in New Orleans later this month to consider how to consolidate the suits against Union Carbide. In Bhopal a wealthy Indian businessman, Surya Guptan, who lives in the United States, announced

that he was bringing the latest of these class actions, for SUSSO billion ($lO3 billion) in a Federal court in Los Angeles on behalf of 6000 victims. In addition to the 2500 people who died, Mr McCauley said, more than 195,000 claimed serious, permanent damage to their lungs or lesser health effects. Most of the suits accuse Union Carbide and its agents of faulty design, negligent maintenance, and inadequate staff at the Bhopal plant.