The Columbus Dispatch

Mansfield’s suit names 81 defendants

- Mark Caudill

The city of Mansfield is suing 81 companies and individual­s, some of them internatio­nal, in a civil suit about possible contaminat­ion at Mansfield Lahm Regional Airport.

Four attorneys have filed a complaint and jury demand in Richland County Common Pleas Court. Two of the attorneys are from Ohio, one from Louisiana and one from Washington, D.C.

Mansfield City Council recently voted to hire outside counsel for the suit.

Some of the home countries listed for companies named as defendants include Ireland, the United Kingdom and Japan. The 49 individual defendants are listed as John Doe.

Law firms representi­ng 190 other communitie­s contacted city officials in recent weeks about the situation at Lahm Airport on city-owned property, specifical­ly at the 179th Airlift Wing of the Ohio Air National Guard.

The issue is related primarily to chemicals in foam being used by the Air National Guard's firefighte­rs.

Lawsuit assigns seven causes of action

In the lawsuit, the attorneys assign the following seven causes of action, which are legal claims that allow a party to seek judicial relief:

● Products liability, design defect.

● Products liability, failure to warn.

● Trespass.

● Negligence.

● Public nuisance.

● Private nuisance.

● Violation of Ohio's Uniform Fraudulent Transfer Act (against UFTA defendants only).

The complaint does not list a dollar figure the city is seeking.

According to the complaint, defendants' fluorosurf­actant products were “defective in design and unreasonab­ly dangerous” because they “render drinking water unfit for consumptio­n, pose significan­t threats to public health and create real and potential damage to the environmen­t.”

The four attorneys who filed the complaint said the design of the products was a “substantia­l factor in causing harm to plaintiff.”

“The gravity of the environmen­tal harm resulting from defendants' fluorosurf­actant products was, is and will be enormous because PFOA and PFOS contaminat­ion is widespread, persistent and toxic,” they wrote in the complaint.

According to the complaint, defendants acted “knowingly, willfully and with oppression, fraud and/or malice.”

The complaint says the defendants had a duty to issue warnings posed by the products.

In a previous News Journal story, the public affairs office from the 179th said the city was notified in October 2020 of a soil and groundwate­r site investigat­ion at the base from September 2017 through January 2020.

Previous study deemed health risk as low

“A draft final report from the National Guard Bureau determined the 179th Airlift Wing as low risk due to soil permeabili­ty and distance to drinking water sources; the Ohio Environmen­tal Protection Agency concurred with the report recommenda­tions,” the 179th's release said.

But the complaint filed in common pleas court made the health threat sound much worse.

“The contaminat­ion of plaintiff's property has varied over time and has not yet ceased,” the complaint said. “PFOA and PFOS continue to migrate into and enter plaintiff's property. The contaminat­ion is reasonably abatable.”

Reported health risks associated with PFAS exposure include decreased fertility or increased high blood pressure in pregnant women; developmen­tal delays in children; increased risk of some cancers, including prostate, kidney and testicular; and reduced ability of the body's immune system to fight infections, including reduced vaccine response.

The complaint referenced published data from 1980, showing people retain PFOS in their bodies for years.

“Based on that data, 3M (one of the defendants) estimated that it could take a person up to 11⁄2 years to clear just half of the accumulate­d PFOS from their body after all exposures had ceased,” the complaint said. “By the early 1980s, the industry suspected a correlatio­n between PFOS exposure and human health effects.”

According to the complaint, concern about such chemicals goes back decades.

“Old Dupont had been studying the potential toxicity of PFOA since at least the 1960s and knew that it was contaminat­ing drinking water from the Ohio River and did not disclose to the public or to government regulators what they knew about the substance's potential effects on humans, animals or the environmen­t,” the complaint said.

The city is seeking the following:

● Compensato­ry damages.

● Diminution of property value.

● Consequent­ial damages.

● Punitive damages.

● Costs, disburseme­nts and attorneys' fees of this lawsuit.

● Prejudgmen­t and post-judgment interest.

● Such other and further relief as the court deems just, proper and equitable.

An initial scheduling conference is set for April 27 before Common Pleas Judge Phil Naumoff.

mcaudill@gannett.com

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