Los Angeles — Union Carbide Corp. has been named in another multibillion dollar class action suit over the gas leak at its plant in Bhopal, India, that killed 2,500 people, court documents showed.
The $50 billion Superior Court suit is at least the 18th lawsuit brought against the Connecticut based company since the disaster.
Attorney Harvey Cooper said in the Los Angeles suit the plaintiffs suffered shock and injury to their nervous systems and experienced ‘great mental, physical and nervous suffering.”
It was not clear in the suit if the plaintiffs are relatives of victims who died in the gas leak or if they are survivors.
The suit seeks $50 billion in general damages, plus medical, burial and incidental expenses _ incurred by the plaintiffs and their relatives.
Names as plaintiffs in the suit were Firoz Khan, Kadir Ali, Jafari Saheb, S. ManzorUlHab, Shaik Nazif, Banarsi Das Chaturvedi and Mohammed Aslam.
The suit also sought damages for an additional 40,000 still unnamed victims of the gas leak.
All but four of the lawsuits have been filed in federal court in various jurisdictions around the country. Six are now pending against Union Carbide in District Court in Charleston, W. Va., and three in federal court in Bridgeport and New Haven, Conn.
Most of the suits ask for between $5 billion and $20 billion in damages. And most ask for the cases to be consolidated into one giant class action suit against the company.
A seven judge multidistrict panel of judges will hear arguments in New Orleans Jan. 24 on whether and where to consolidate the cases.
Union Carbide Chairman Warren E. Anderson said last week the company has no objections to consolidation of the suits, but he would like the cases to be heard in India rather than the United States.
The latest suit was filed Jan. 11 and appeared in court documents Monday.
Article extracted from this publication >> January 25, 1985
