DuPont is a manufacturer of the plastic material, Teflon, in Parkersburg, West Virginia, USA. Teflon was made of Perfluorooctanoic acid, or PFOA or C-8, until 2013. Studies have shown that susceptibility to PFOA is related to different diseases. The factory discarded and released over 1.7 million pounds of PFOA between 1951 and 2003, according to a 2004 report performed by a market risk assessor employed by DuPont.
People working in the facility, families living in the surrounding city, or populations living downstream impacted by water contamination, all alleging to have PFOA pollution-related illnesses, filed several lawsuits against DuPont. In 1998, a local family sued DuPont over the loss of cattle allegedly due to pollution from the nearby landfill laden with PFOA sludge. This case was settled for an unspecified amount in 2001. The details discovered in this case against PFOA led to a class action brought in 2001 by the same counsel on behalf of 80,000 residents residing in areas where PFOA had spilled into water supplies. The legal action was settled in 2005, with DuPont promising to pay up to $235 million for emergency monitoring to over 70,000 residents residing in six water districts surrounding the Parkersburg facility.
By 2014, there has been an increasing number of individual lawsuits against DuPont for PFOA related disorders, and six victims have been chosen for test cases to see whether the rest are likely to be faced. There were about 3,500 pending cases by 2015. In the first instance, a jury found that DuPont was responsible for a plaintiff’s kidney cancer and ordered the company to pay $1.6 million in compensatory damages. A jury ruled that DuPont had acted maliciously with the second and ordered the company to pay $5.6 million with punitive damages and compensatory damages. Three other lawsuits were dismissed for undisclosed sums in 2014 and 2016, and the complainant took the fourth from the court case pool. DuPont settled more than 3,550 PFOA cases for $671 million in February 2017 but denied any wrongdoing.
This business, in my view, is not trustable because of the actions that they have taken. The firm did lots of damage to animal and human water, soil, and hygiene. Moreover, if Dupont consisted of unethical business behavior, their products are also not reliable and safe to use.
References
Board, Glynis. “Ohio River Communities Are Still Coping with Teflon’s Toxic Legacy.” The Allegheny Front, 26 Sept. 2019, www.alleghenyfront.org/ohio-river-communities-are-still-coping-with-teflons-toxic-legacy/.
“C-8 Questions & Answers.” Keep Your Promises, keepyourpromisesdupont.com/faq/#class-action.
Kourabas, Michael. “The Case of DuPont’s Pollution and the Importance of CSR.” Reporting on the Triple Bottom Line & Sustainable Business News, 11 Jan. 2016, www.triplepundit.com/story/2016/case-duponts-pollution-and-importance-csr/29241.
Lerner, Sharon. “How DuPont Slipped Past the EPA.” The Intercept, 20 Aug. 2015, theintercept.com/2015/08/20/teflon-toxin-dupont-slipped-past-epa/.
Mordock, Jeff. “Jury Orders DuPont to Pay $500K in Punitive Damages.” Delawareonline, The News Journal, 8 July 2016, www.delawareonline.com/story/news/2016/07/08/jury-orders-dupont-pay-500k-punitive-damages/86862354/.
Nair, Arathy S. “DuPont Settles Lawsuits over Leak of Chemical Used to Make Teflon.” Reuters, Thomson Reuters, 13 Feb. 2017, www.reuters.com/article/us-du-pont-lawsuit-west-virginia-idUSKBN15S18U.
“Perfluorooctanoic Acid (PFOA), Teflon, and Related Chemicals.” American Cancer Society, www.cancer.org/cancer/cancer-causes/teflon-and-perfluorooctanoic-acid-pfoa.html.
Rich, Nathaniel. “The Lawyer Who Became DuPont’s Worst Nightmare.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 6 Jan. 2016, www.nytimes.com/2016/01/10/magazine/the-lawyer-who-became-duponts-worst-nightmare.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=photo-spot-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0.
Rinehart, Earl. “DuPont Negligent in C8 Case, Owes Woman $1.6 Million.” The Columbus Dispatch, The Columbus Dispatch, 8 Oct. 2015, www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2015/10/07/Dupont-ordered-to-pay-damages.html.
Silverstein, Ken. “DuPont Hopes It Is Like Teflon And That Current Legal Cases Against It Don’t Stick.” Forbes, Forbes Magazine, 6 June 2016, www.forbes.com/sites/kensilverstein/2016/06/06/dupont-hopes-it-is-like-teflon-and-that-current-legal-cases-against-it-dont-stick/#5d7742b41e74.
Trowbridge, Denise, and Tiffany Kary. “DuPont Found Liable in First of 3,500 Toxic-Water Lawsuits.” Bloomberg.com, Bloomberg, 7 Oct. 2015, 18:09, www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-10-07/dupont-jury-reaches-verdict-in-ohio-toxic-water-lawsuit.
