Just weeks after a Cook County jury handed a cancer survivor a record $363 million award against Sterigenics, a judge ruled Friday that the 800-plus other plaintiffs suing the company over allegedly toxic emissions from its Willowbrook plant can take their cases to trial in groups.
The ruling by Judge James Flannery will speed the progress of lawsuits against Sterigenics, which last month saw a jury award 70-year-old Susan Kamuda $38 million in damages and another $325 million in punitive damages in the first case to go trial, said Patrick Salvi II, the attorney representing Kamuda and more than 200 other plaintiffs who have sued Sterigenics over illnesses linked to ethylene oxide emitted by the Willowbrook facility.
