Federal judge says Yucca complaint needs rewriting

Jace Radke

Tuesday, Dec. 21, 2004 | 9:41 a.m.

Attorneys who filed a lawsuit against Yucca Mountain contractors for allegedly failing to warn workers about the dangers of silica dust will have to file an amended complaint in U.S. District Court after a federal judge dismissed the original suit Monday.

U.S. District Judge James Mahan said that he believes the allegations made in the original complaint are serious and should be examined through the discovery process, but said that the complaint needed to be amended to remove unnecessary language that would be more at home in a press release than a lawsuit.

"I'm not real happy with the complaint," Mahan told Joe Egan, the Washington, D.C.-area lawyer who filed the lawsuit. "This is pretty juvenile stuff for a lawyer.

"This public relations language does not pass muster."

Egan said that he did not intend for the complaint to come off like a press release designed to attract media attention, leaving Mahan disbelieving.

"Come on, I didn't just fall off the turnip truck," Mahan said.

Mahan pointed out conclusionary statements in the complaint, as well as several quotations that aren't attributed to anyone. Mahan said that the hyperbole has to be cut from the complaint, and that the complaint should be short and to the point, detailing the plaintiff's beef with the defendant.

Egan apologized for the excessive language and said that he would file an amended complaint by Jan. 10. Egan said that the complaint was meant to serve notice to Yucca workers that they were lied to by contractors as part of a fraud by concealment.

The class action lawsuit was first filed in March on behalf of former Yucca Mountain employee Gene Griego and others who were involved with Yucca drilling or were otherwise exposed to silica in the mountain tunnel from 1992 to 2003. Griego worked at Yucca from 1993 to 2002 and was diagnosed with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease last year.

The lawsuit lists nine corporate defendants -- contractors involved with Yucca tunneling and research, including Bechtel National Inc., Bechtel SAIC Co., Parsons Brinckerhoff Construction Services and Kiwet Construction.

Tami Azorsky, an attorney for the defendants, told Mahan that Egan's complaint should not be a preview of the evidence in the case, and should be a simple concise statement.

Mahan said that he would not have read the original complaint to the jury if the case were to go to trial. Once an amended complaint is filed by Jan. 10 the defendants will have 30 days to reply, Mahan said.

While the amended complaint and reply are being drafted, discovery should continue, Mahan said.