» CHEMICAL AND OTHER EXPOSURES Ms Sparky

KBR asks federal judge to dismiss case brought by Oregon soldiers

Posted on: January 27th, 2012 at 2:42 pm — by Ms Sparky

Mike Francis – (The Oregonian) – January 27, 2012 – Lawyers for defense contractor KBR Inc. asked a federal judge in Portland Friday to dismiss the suit brought by a group of Oregon National Guard soldiers who said the KBR knowingly exposed them to a carcinogenic compound while they served in Iraq in 2003.

U.S. District Judge Paul Papak heard the arguments for two hours Friday morning, then said he would rule on KBR’s request in the coming weeks.

Friday’s arguments, while delivered in calm and measured tones, included some stinging accusations. KBR’s lawyer said the soldiers’ primary medical expert is “a junk scientist who cannot be trusted.” And the soldiers’ lawyer said KBR committed “fraud” in its conduct at the Qarmat Ali water treatment plant and in its actions afterward.

While KBR is technically asking the judge to dismiss the entire case brought by 34 Oregon National Guard soldiers, KBR lawyer Geoffrey Harrison of the Houston law firm of Susman Godfrey acknowledged that he expects some subset of the group will survive the legal challenge and proceed toward trial.

(Read the rest of the story here…)

Posted in A Soldiers Story, CHEMICAL AND OTHER EXPOSURES, GOV. CONTRACTORS, KBR Contract, KBR Investigations, Lawsuits Against KBR, RIO-KBR, Sodium Dichromate @ Qarmat Ali. Tags: David Sugerman, Hexavalent Chromium, Jeffrey Eden, Judge Paul Papak, KBR, Oregon National Guard, Qarmat Ali, Schwabe Williamson & Wyatt, Sodium Dichromate. No Comments »

David Isenberg: Gun? Check. Radio? Check. Lawyer? Check!

Posted on: January 20th, 2012 at 10:46 am — by Ms Sparky

David Isenberg – (Huffington Post) – January 20, 2012 – Some things just seem to go together: day and night, bread and butter, Romeo and Juliet, Abbott and Costello, Crosby and Hope, Batman and Robin, Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck, Cheech and Chong, Sonny and Cher, Beavis and Butthead and sharks and suckerfish (remora) for example. In light of that last pair, another symbiotic pair is private military and security contractors and lawyers.

When historians try to calculate the various benefits that the past decade of privatized contingency operations has brought, one hopes they won’t forget to include the huge number of billable hours that various law firms representing various plaintiffs and defendants have amassed. Firms like KBR, Blackwater and DynCorp alone have doubtlessly enabled scores of lawyers to pay for their children’s education all the way up through doctorates.

For example, earlier this month the security company once known as Blackwater, now Academi, agreed to settle a lawsuit filed by six victims or their families in the Sept. 16, 2007 shootings in Baghdad’s Nisoor Square, an incident that remains a lightning rod over the use of private contractors in war.

According to Charlotte, North Carolina law firm Lewis & Roberts, who represented the victims in this case, the lawsuit was the “last active civil suit stemming from the incident,” in which five Blackwater guards were accused in 14 deaths of civilians.

Also this month the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), announced that DynCorp International, a Falls Church, Va.-based private military contractor and aircraft maintenance company, will pay $155,000 and furnish other significant relief to settle a sex-based harassment and retaliation lawsuit.

(Read the rest of the story here…)

Judge allows late documents but penalizes victims in Qarmat Ali suit againt KBR

Posted on: January 6th, 2012 at 7:55 am — by Ms Sparky

Let me get this straight, Judge Papak is allowing KBR to bill the soldiers and surviving family members for legal fees that the taxpayer is obligated to pay because the Pentagon, in their infinite wisdom, gave KBR an indemnity clause in their contract that covers their corporate ass even if the company is proven to be at fault or liable! If KBR isn’t footing the bill for this litigation in the first place what legal expenses have they incurred?

I have to believe that Judge Papak made this decision based on the letter of the law and to avoid grounds for appeal as this case moves forward. However, this is the second time a judge has allowed these corporate vultures to collect money from plaintiffs aka victims for legal fees. You have to know that the merry band of misfits KBR calls managers have added this tidbit to their arsenal of threats right along side “chicken or pasta.”

What’s next, a “fact sheet” touting how the company is saving the taxpayer money by recouping legal fees from injured soldiers and the survivors of those that have died; at the hands of companies who were hired to serve and protect our warriors serving the United States in a combat zone? ~Ms Sparky

National Guardsmen to Pay for Late Maneuver
Nick McCann – (Courthouse News) – PORTLAND, Ore. – January 4, 2011 – A group of Oregon National Guard members who say KBR exposed them to toxic sodium dichromate at an Iraqi water-treatment plant are on the hook for part of the defense contractor’s legal fees, a federal judge ruled. (Read the rest of the story here…)

Posted in A Soldiers Story, CHEMICAL AND OTHER EXPOSURES, GOV. CONTRACTORS, LAWSUITS, Lawsuits Against KBR, Qarmat Ali Lawsuits, Reports & Investigations, RIO-KBR, Sodium Dichromate @ Qarmat Ali. Tags: Hexavalent Chromium, Judge Paul Papak, KBR, Oregon National Guard, Qarmat Ali, Sodium Dichromate. 4 Comments »

U.S. Army protects KBR from willfull misconduct in Iraq

Posted on: December 16th, 2011 at 2:12 pm — by Ms Sparky

Indemnification clauses are nothing new in defense contracting. Many defense contractors now have or have had in the past, contracts with the Pentagon containing indemnity provisions. These provisions potentially immunize the contractors from legal accountability for harm caused during the implementation of their contracts. Indemnification clauses are most commonly found in high risk contracts dealing with the manufacture and disposal of hazardous materials for the Pentagon. Most importantly these indemnification clauses are not necessarily “classified” by the Pentagon unlike the indemnification clause that was added to KBR’s no bid contract to Restore Iraqi Oil (RIO) at Qarmat Ali in Southern Iraq in 2003.

In a deposition filed in U.S. District Court in Portland, Oregon in the case of the deadly hexavalent chromium exposure of Oregon National Guardsman and others, it was revealed that on March 18, 2003, the eve of the Iraq invasion, a KBR attorney secured a secret indemnification clause ensuring U.S. taxpayers, and not KBR, would pay for damages in the event of any death or injury which occurred during KBR’s implementation of the Restore Iraqi Oil no-bid contract in Southern Iraq, a contract worth over $2.5B.

The typical defense contractor indemnification provisions (pdf) for defense contracts, entered as Plaintiff’s exhibit #34 in the Oregon National Guard case against KBR states:

Section (e) – The Contractor shall not be reimbursed for liabilities (and expenses incidental to such liabilities)–

Section (e)(3) – That result from willful misconduct or lack of good faith on the part of any of the Contractor’s directors, officers, managers, superintendents, or other representatives who have supervision or direction of–

(i) All or substantially all of the Contractor’s business;

(ii) All or substantially all of the Contractor’s operations at any one plant or separate locations in which this contract is being performed; or

(iii) a separate and complete major industrial operation in connection with the performance of this contract.

KBR’s recently declassified indemnification provisions (pdf) for the $2.5B no-bid Restore Iraqi Oil contract in Southern Iraq are a stark contrast to the typical indemnification afforded to other defense contractors and states: (Read the rest of the story here…)

Posted in CHEMICAL AND OTHER EXPOSURES, GOV. CONTRACTORS, KBR, KBR Contract, LAWSUITS, Lawsuits Against KBR, Politics, Qarmat Ali Lawsuits, RIO-KBR, Sodium Dichromate @ Qarmat Ali. Tags: Hexavalent Chromium, KBR, Lawsuits Against KBR, Qarmat Ali, Rep. Earl Blumenauer*, Rep. Kurt Schrader*, Senator Jeff Merkley*, Senator Ron Wyden*. No Comments »

Lawmakers Secure Provision in NDAA to Bring Transparency to War Contracting Process

Posted on: December 16th, 2011 at 7:03 am — by Ms Sparky

Blumenauer, Wyden, Schrader, Merkley Secure Provision in NDAA to Bring Transparency to War Contracting Process

Thursday, 15 December 2011 17:57

Amendment A Legislative Response To Classified Immunity Deal For Contractor KBR That Exposed Oregon National Guardsmen To Toxic Chemicals In Iraq

WASHINGTON – Today, Congress sent a version of the National Defense Authorization Act of 2011 to President Obama that included an amendment championed by Oregon Reps. Earl Blumenauer and Kurt Schrader and Sens. Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley bringing greater transparency to the war contracting process. The amendment requires the Secretary of Defense to notify the Congressional defense committees when the Pentagon enters into indemnification agreements with contractors connected to U.S. military efforts abroad and explain why such a provision is necessary.

The legislative victory culminates a process that began during the last Congress to reform how the Pentagon does business with defense contractors. The push was sparked by the stories of 34 members of the Oregon National Guard who are suing KBR after exposure to the lethal carcinogen hexavalant chromium during their 2003 tour in Iraq while protecting the Qarmat Ali Water Treatment Facility. The Qarmat Ali site, contracted to KBR for reconstruction, left Oregon troops with chronic medical problems.

The lawsuit revealed the existence of a classified indemnification clause in the KBR contract that could absolve the company from liability and shift the cost of unlimited damages, health costs and court fees onto the Department of Defense and, by extension, U.S. taxpayers. That contract was fully declassified this week as the Iraq war came to an official close. (Read the rest of the story here…)

KBR stilling fighting Oregon National Guard Troops over Qarmat Ali exposures

Posted on: December 16th, 2011 at 6:37 am — by Ms Sparky

Sodium dichromate has been linked a range of illnesses

KBR, Oregon soldiers back in federal court over medical claims Friday

By Mike Francis, The Oregonian

Lawyers for military contractor KBR Inc. will ask a federal judge in Portland Friday to rule against a group of 34 Oregon Guard soldiers who say the contractor knowingly exposed them to a carcinogenic compound in Iraq in 2003.

Attorneys of the Houston firm of Susman Godfrey will argue that the soldiers’ lawyers have failed to prove that the troops’ medical symptoms were caused by exposure to the compound.

The soldiers sued KBR after they provided security for the contractors working to repair a water treatment facility at Qarmat Ali in southern Iraq.

In Friday’s hearing, KBR’s lawyers will argue before Judge Paul Papak that the plaintiffs have failed to prove that their medical symptoms, which range from skin irritation to severe gastrointestinal and respiratory distress, were caused by exposure to sodium dichromate in 2003. They will also ask the judge to strike the testimony offered by a Texas doctor and professor who filed a “tardy” report on the soldiers’ symptoms. (Read the rest of the story here…)

Posted in CHEMICAL AND OTHER EXPOSURES, GOV. CONTRACTORS, LAWSUITS, Lawsuits Against KBR, Qarmat Ali Lawsuits, Reports & Investigations, RIO-KBR, Sodium Dichromate @ Qarmat Ali. Tags: Hexavalent Chromium, Judge Paul Papak, KBR, Lawsuits Against KBR, Oregon National Guard, Qartmat Ali, Sodium Dichromate. No Comments »

Defense contractor KBR disputes findings on cancer-causing chemical

Posted on: October 27th, 2011 at 5:19 am — by Ms Sparky

Group says federal report blaming them for soldiers’ exposure to carcinogen inaccurate

Ry Rivard – (Charleston Daily Mail) – CHARLESTON, W.Va. – National defense contractor Kellogg, Brown & Root disputes some of the findings in a government report that faulted it for failing to properly safeguard Americans from exposure to a cancer-causing chemical.

The report, by the U.S. Department of Defense’s Office of the Inspector General, blamed KBR and U.S. military officials for failing to comply with and enforce workplace safety standards as Americans – including 122 members of the West Virginia National Guard – were exposed to a cancer-causing chemical in Iraq in 2003.

The report said KBR did not fully comply with occupational safety and health standards required by its contract.

But by the contractor’s account, the Army is more to blame.

(Read the rest of the story here…)