First Hanford downwinder claim could be last to settle

Just as it looked as though all claims in the Hanford downwinder lawsuit had been resolved, an Oregon attorney says the first claim filed 28 years ago has yet to be settled.

The estate of Frieda Seaman filed a claim in early 1988 in federal court in Oregon, which was consolidated with other claims in federal court in Eastern Washington in 1991.

More than 3,000 people would file claims in the consolidated federal case, arguing that radioactive emissions from Hanford had been carried downwind to harm their health in the 1940s and 1950s.

Most of the cases that advanced to settlement were for thyroid disease. The radioactive iodine that was released from Hanford in its early years concentrates in the thyroid.

Seaman’s sons said that she lived on Pasco property next to the Hanford nuclear reservation from 1944-55. She developed thyroid cancer in 1958 and was diagnosed with leukemia in 1976, which took her life.

“Ironically, it was Seaman’s efforts in Oregon that led others to file similar claims,” delaying resolution of the initial claim, said attorney Michael Bloom, of Lake Oswego, Ore., in court documents.

Bloom said that the Seaman case was largely ready to go to trial on a date just a few months away, when it was consolidated with subsequent downwinder claims. There was little for him to do for the next 24 years, he said.

In October 2015, the last major plaintiff group among those represented by 14 legal firms reached a settlement, and Judge William Fremming Nielsen ordered briefings on why the cases should not be dismissed.

“A single party, the estate of Frieda Seaman, has come forward to claim that the ‘In re Hanford’ action is not — as everyone else had been led to believe — finally over and ready to be dismissed,” said defense attorneys after Bloom responded to the court.

Bloom said it was not an instance, as the judge had suggested, of not sufficiently prosecuting the claim.

Bloom told the court that in spring 2015 the court began sending emails to an incorrect address and he learned the case was closing down shortly before an October hearing.

“There is no court order that Seaman failed to comply with,” the plaintiff said in court documents. “Nor was there any notice that Seaman’s case would be dismissed for any reason. The most that can be said is that Seaman did not regularly participate in the court’s status conferences.”

Defense attorneys, who represent five early Hanford contractors indemnified by the federal government, said the Seaman estate had not been able to show that it had taken a single action to prosecute the claim in the last 13 years. The court ordered all plaintiffs with active claims to identify themselves for a regularly updated master list.

“The court’s case management procedures ensured that anyone with an interest in the Hanford action knew precisely what was going on in the case … and what they had to do to protect and advance their claims,” the defense said in court documents.

The claim was hurt by the exposure of Frieda Seaman to radiation as an adult, when plaintiff experts have testified that risk is largely limited to people exposed as children, the defense said.

“Seaman disappeared from this case for the past decade and resurfaced only when the prospect of easy money presented itself” as settlement agreements were reached, the defense said. It asked that the court dismiss the case.

The attorney for the Seaman family said they are entitled to a day in court after waiting for nearly three decades for a resolution.

Bloom requested the case be transferred back to Oregon. If it remains in Eastern Washington, the federal judge could refer the case to mediation. If mediation fails, it then could go to trial or refer the case to binding arbitration.

The terms of settlement agreements reached by other plaintiffs have not been made public.

This story was originally published January 25, 2016 at 8:03 PM with the headline "First Hanford downwinder claim could be last to settle."