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CNN Live At Daybreak
Decision Could Open Door for Thousands of Vietnam Vets to File New Lawsuits
Aired June 10, 2003 - 06:21 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: On to Agent Orange and a decision that could open the door for thousands of Vietnam veterans to file new lawsuits. A split decision by the Supreme Court has opened the door and the question of whether companies can be sued forever.
Attorney Gerson Smoger argued the case before the Supreme Court on behalf of the veterans and he joins us live by phone this morning from Washington.
Good morning, sir.
GERSON SMOGER, ATTORNEY: Good morning.
COSTELLO: Companies like Dow and Monsanto have already paid out something like $180 million in damages. Why should they still be held liable when they've already settled the claims?
SMOGER: They paid that out to very few people, just a small number of people. They didn't settle the claim. They tried to settle a class action and they basically tried to throw $75 at each person of over 2.4 million people that were in Vietnam and say that they were done with it, when the vast majority of people, especially those people with very serious cancers that have been related to Agent Orange by the National Academy of Sciences, never received a dime of that settlement.
COSTELLO: And some of these people are just now getting sick, is that right?
SMOGER: That's correct. Most cancers don't show up until 20 to 30 years after somebody's exposed. So it's only now that we know which cancers and which diseases have been caused by Agent Orange.
COSTELLO: How many lawsuits do you suspect will be filed now?
SMOGER: That's very difficult to tell. I mean it's clear that many thousands of people would have the type of specific cancers that we now know to be related to Agent Orange. And we've only known that since the early 1990s, and also Diabetes Type II, which has also been related to Agent Orange.
COSTELLO: Understand.
This does bring up the question, though, of how long companies can be sued.
Do you believe in this case they should be able to be sued forever?
SMOGER: Well, they're able to be sued to the point of their damages that they created being caused. The question here was how could somebody who didn't have a cancer and never had it diagnosed or didn't have a disease that he even knew about possibly have brought a suit in 1984, when this class action case was originally settled? These people are getting their diseases now. They can't begin to bring a lawsuit until they actually have the disease. So it's not a question of forever. It's a question of the damage that you caused. And if you're going to expose somebody to extremely toxic chemicals that are long acting and the terms of the cancers are much later, you can't be sued until somebody actually knows of an injury.
COSTELLO: Understand.
Attorney Gerson Smoger, thanks for joining us live on our phone lines on DAYBREAK.
SMOGER: Thank you.
COSTELLO: You can check on the history of this issue on our Web page. Just click onto cnn.com, AOL keyword: CNN.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
File New Lawsuits>
Aired June 10, 2003 - 06:21 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: On to Agent Orange and a decision that could open the door for thousands of Vietnam veterans to file new lawsuits. A split decision by the Supreme Court has opened the door and the question of whether companies can be sued forever.
Attorney Gerson Smoger argued the case before the Supreme Court on behalf of the veterans and he joins us live by phone this morning from Washington.
Good morning, sir.
GERSON SMOGER, ATTORNEY: Good morning.
COSTELLO: Companies like Dow and Monsanto have already paid out something like $180 million in damages. Why should they still be held liable when they've already settled the claims?
SMOGER: They paid that out to very few people, just a small number of people. They didn't settle the claim. They tried to settle a class action and they basically tried to throw $75 at each person of over 2.4 million people that were in Vietnam and say that they were done with it, when the vast majority of people, especially those people with very serious cancers that have been related to Agent Orange by the National Academy of Sciences, never received a dime of that settlement.
COSTELLO: And some of these people are just now getting sick, is that right?
SMOGER: That's correct. Most cancers don't show up until 20 to 30 years after somebody's exposed. So it's only now that we know which cancers and which diseases have been caused by Agent Orange.
COSTELLO: How many lawsuits do you suspect will be filed now?
SMOGER: That's very difficult to tell. I mean it's clear that many thousands of people would have the type of specific cancers that we now know to be related to Agent Orange. And we've only known that since the early 1990s, and also Diabetes Type II, which has also been related to Agent Orange.
COSTELLO: Understand.
This does bring up the question, though, of how long companies can be sued.
Do you believe in this case they should be able to be sued forever?
SMOGER: Well, they're able to be sued to the point of their damages that they created being caused. The question here was how could somebody who didn't have a cancer and never had it diagnosed or didn't have a disease that he even knew about possibly have brought a suit in 1984, when this class action case was originally settled? These people are getting their diseases now. They can't begin to bring a lawsuit until they actually have the disease. So it's not a question of forever. It's a question of the damage that you caused. And if you're going to expose somebody to extremely toxic chemicals that are long acting and the terms of the cancers are much later, you can't be sued until somebody actually knows of an injury.
COSTELLO: Understand.
Attorney Gerson Smoger, thanks for joining us live on our phone lines on DAYBREAK.
SMOGER: Thank you.
COSTELLO: You can check on the history of this issue on our Web page. Just click onto cnn.com, AOL keyword: CNN.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
File New Lawsuits>
