Jaringan Rakyat Tertindas - JERIT

March 6 (Bloomberg) -- Exxon Mobil Corp., the largest U.S. energy company, must pay $1.2 million to 16 Louisiana workers who claimed they were exposed to dangerous levels of radiation when they were cleaning used oil drilling pipes, a jury said.

A state court jury in Gretna, Louisiana, yesterday awarded the men amounts ranging from $10,000 to $175,000 each, finding that they face an increased risk of cancer as a result of their exposure to naturally occurring radioactive material in the used pipes between 1977 and 1992.

“It was not what I was hoping for,” said one of the men, David Perry, who was awarded $10,000.

The owners of the property where the men worked won a $1 billion punitive jury verdict against Exxon in 2001 for radioactive contamination from the pipe-cleaning operation. The punitive judgment was reduced to $112 million and paid, with interest, after Exxon’s appeals failed.

The claims are among thousands pending against Exxon and other oil companies over allegations that they put employees and residents near pipe-cleaning operations at risk from radiation- related diseases, particularly cancer.

The verdict comes after Exxon settled several claims in the case by plaintiffs who had developed cancer. None of the 16 men whose claims the jury rejected yesterday suffers from a radiation-related illness.

“We are pleased the jury rejected almost all of the plaintiffs’ claims,” Margaret Ross, a spokeswoman for Exxon Mobil, said in an e-mailed statement. “We remain disappointed that the plaintiffs’ attorneys rejected our standing offer to pay for screening tests that would show the workers have no physical injury.”

Workers’ ‘Victory’

Tim Falcon, a lawyer for the men, said “It’s a victory for the workers. We’re satisfied that the jury acknowledged there was contamination in the yard and that the workers were exposed. We feel it was not correct for the jury to not punish Exxon based on the evidence that got into the record.”

In the five-week trial, the men claimed they were exposed to high levels of radium in the residue, or “scale,” that built up inside the drilling pipes. Jurors began deliberating Feb. 24.

The workers, all former employees of Intracoastal Tubular Services, or ITCO, at a site in Harvey, Louisiana, near New Orleans, claimed that internal Exxon memos showed the Irving, Texas-based company had information about the risk beginning in the 1930s. ITCO, which went out of business in 1992, was found not liable by the jurors yesterday.

Radiation Danger

The workers claimed Exxon delayed disclosing the radiation danger to prevent federal authorities from reclassifying as hazardous waste the radioactive water it pumped from wells. An internal Exxon document estimated the cost of the regulatory change at $750 million the first year plus $150 million a year thereafter, the plaintiffs claimed.

The workers asked jurors to award $1.3 million for medical monitoring, additional pay ranging from $50,000 to $150,000, depending on each worker’s estimated radiation exposure, and $15 million in punitive damages. Jurors yesterday denied the medical monitoring and punitive damage claims.

Exxon denied it did anything wrong and argued that as none of the plaintiffs claimed radiation-related health problems, they couldn’t recover damages. The company claimed the radiation levels at the Harvey site weren’t high enough to cause illness.