Feds,
Trade Groups Could Be Included In Lawsuit Umbrella
RCR News
Journalist: Jeffrey Silva
August 27, 2001
As
cell-phone health litigation against mobile-phone carriers and manufacturers
grows, plaintiffs lawyers are
considering casting a wider net that would also target trade associations,
standard-setting bodies, federal agencies and individuals in lawsuits,
according to sources close to lawsuits currently pending against industry.
To date, mobile-phone manufacturers and operators have been on the receiving
end of a handful of health lawsuits unsuccessfully brought against the
wireless industry since 1992. But as trial lawyers learn more about the
inner workings of industry trade associations, standard-setting bodies that
craft mobile-phone radiation guidelines and federal regulatory agencies that
oversee health and safety, the more they say greater accountability is
warranted.
Last month, a federal judge ruled the Cellular Telecommunications & Internet
Association and the Telecommunications Industry Association are fair game as
defendants in an $800 million personal injury lawsuit that Baltimore lawyer
Peter Angelos filed against the mobile-phone industry on behalf of
42-year-old neurologist Christopher Newman. The lawsuit, which is shaping up
as the biggest legal challenge yet for industry, claims Newman's brain
cancer was caused by cell-phone use.
Through this month, industry lawyers deposed scientific experts for Newman.
In September, Angelos' lawyers plan to grill industry radio-frequency
radiation scientists.
A hearing on the scientific merits of the case is set to be held in January.
If Newman's lawyers pass muster, the case likely will go to trial. However,
it is unclear whether the judge will allow the case to continue in federal
court (which industry favors for various legal reasons) or will agree to
remand the case back to state court.
The Angelos law firm is pursuing a similar lawsuit in Georgia and is
involved in several lawsuits seeking to force industry to supply
mobile-phone consumers with hands-free headsets as protection against
radiation injury. The lawsuits also aim to punish industry for not doing so
since 1983, when cellular phone service
began in the United States.
Industry and plaintiffs lawyers argued the headset issue last Wednesday in a
New Orleans court, a case key to the future of similar litigation filed in
other states.
CTIA and TIA have been named in other health-related lawsuits as well.
Another Baltimore lawyer, Joanne Suder, is putting together a team of
lawyers from around the country to drop a slew of
phone-cancer lawsuits across a large number of states in coming months. As
early as fall, Suder and other lawyers also plan to file a public-interest
lawsuit against various federal agencies for failing to protect consumers
from alleged health risks from mobile-phone radiation.
The prospect of a public-interest lawsuit was given a boost recently when
Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.) and Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) signaled
concern about the ability of the Federal Communications Commission, Food and
Drug Administration and National Institutes of Health to oversee
phone-radiation safety.
In a July 30 letter, the two lawmakers directed the General Accounting
Office which twice has issued reports saying more research is needed to
determine whether mobile phones are safe to monitor the three agencies to
comply with recommendations in a May 7 report. The GAO report recommended
the public be given improved access to detailed information about phone
radiation and health issues generally. In addition, GAO directed the FDA and
CTIA to shed public light on various aspects of a limited, industry-funded
research agreement between the two parties.
Reacting to GAO's finding that the United States conducts very little
wireless health research compared to other countries, Lieberman and Markey
wrote the FDA and NIH for feedback on whether additional U.S. funding of
phone-cancer studies is needed. Neither agency addressed the issue directly
in their written replies to the lawmakers.
"The responses that we have received from the agencies raise our concern
that the recommendations made by GAO have not been fully addressed, and will
require some follow-up," stated Lieberman and Markey in the letter to GAO
Comptroller General David Walker.
The wireless industry insists studies have failed to link mobile phones to
cancer, but others point to research that has found genetic damage, DNA
breaks, memory impairment, eye cancer and increased incidences of brain
tumors in lab animals and humans alike.
Last month, an Illinois state judge gave preliminary approval to a partial
settlement in a huge class-action lawsuit that claims mobile-phone
subscribers' privacy were violated as part of an epidemiology study designed
to track cancer mortality among cellular subscribers. The plaintiffs have
argued industry allowed mobile phones to be marketed, despite radiation
safety questions.
In addition to mobile carriers, equipment vendors and trade associations,
plaintiffs lawyers could choose to target the Institute of Electrical and
Electronic Engineers, the American National Standards Institute and other
bodies involved in setting mobile-phone radiation standards that some say do
not shield against non-thermal bioffects of phone and base station
transmissions. In 1982, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled voluntary
standard-setting organizations can be held liable in product liability
cases.