ORLANDO, Fla. (Legal Newsline) - Lockheed Martin is attacking the lawsuit filed by a group of plaintiffs who say the weapons manufacturer contaminated the environment around an Orlando, Fla., facility.
Lockheed has been fighting the case, which was filed in Orange County Superior Court and later removed to federal court, for more than a year and filed its motion for summary judgment on Oct. 11.
Its arguments say the plaintiffs have failed to produce expert testimony that can plausibly claim the alleged contaminants caused their illnesses.
"Here, all of Plaintiffs' general-causation experts testified that exposure conditions affect the health risks posed by the substances they considered," the motion says.
"While they all maintained that there are no doses that pose no risk, each expert opined that 'low' doses (a term sused only in the abstract) pose risk that is very low - in some cases 'infinitesimally small.' What's more, no expert could estimate the level of increased risk, if any, that accompanies any dose of any substance relevant to this case.
"And non would opine on the exposure conditions at which the risk posed by any substances becomes even 'appreciable.'"
Lockheed owns a facility on Sand Lake Rd. in Orlando. The complaint says it used highly toxic chemicals for decades without also using the proper containment and handling protocols and, as a result, the soil, air and groundwater were exposed to carcinogens much higher than federal standards.
Lockheed says the plaintiffs lawyers have failed to provide any samples from the locations of the alleged exposures.
"There is likewise no evidence that they have attempted any modeling or tried to reconstruct even the highest level of exposure to any substance that any Plaintiff might plausibly have encountered if the allegations in their complaint were true," the motion says.
"Thus, none of their experts could say what case-relevant exposure conditions might look like, and they made no attempt to tailor their opinions to any exposure levels."
Lockheed has also filed motions to exclude the plaintiffs' experts' opinions.
There are 67 plaintiffs in the case alleging exposure to 34 different substances caused dozens of different illnesses. Their lawyers at Morgan & Morgan filed a motion for partial summary judgment as to general causation on Oct. 11.
That motion says the chemicals at issue are serious enough that general causation is already satisfied and Lockheed has failed to introduce its own expert testimony to rebut the plaintiffs' experts.
Should the judge hearing the case agree, a trial would determine the issue of specific causation to the plaintiffs.