February 26, 2003 WASHINGTON (AP) -- Nearly 30 years after the Vietnam War, the Supreme Court is sorting through a dispute between ill veterans and chemical companies over Agent Orange exposure -- and whether it's too late to sue.
Companies that made the herbicide thought their liability ended with a 1984 class-action settlement.
Justices will decide whether people who got cancer or other diseases long after 1984, and didn't even know about the $180 million settlement, get a chance to challenge the deal.
An appeals court ruled that two cancer-stricken veterans were not adequately represented when the settlement was reached. By the time the men found out they were sick, the cash was gone.
Business groups contend the case, being argued Wednesday at the Supreme Court, could threaten the finality of all class-action judgments, discouraging companies from settling other lawsuits out-of-court.
Groups like the Veterans of Foreign Wars and the American Legion urged the court to fix what they call an injustice against people "who survived the bullets and bombs of the enemy" but are now dying of cancer.
Joe Isaacson, a vice principal in New Jersey, and Daniel Stephenson, a retired helicopter pilot living in Florida, argue that their cancers are related to Agent Orange, used in the 1960s and 1970s to clear dense jungle growth in Vietnam.
Isaacson, a crew chief in the Air Force in 1968-1969, has non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, which is in remission. Stephenson served in Vietnam from 1965-1970 on the ground and as an Army helicopter pilot. He received a bone marrow transplant after being diagnosed with multiple myeloma.
Andrew Frey, an attorney for Dow Chemical Co., Monsanto Co. and others, said companies that were sued decades ago thought they had finality with a settlement that provided money for individual vets and for programs to help all veterans.
"It's not fair to the defendants to say, `Now that we've got your money, let's start over again,"' Frey said.
Ronald Simon, a lawyer for the veterans, said the 1984 settlement was premature. "The industry got everybody settled and is sitting back now laughing and saying, `You guys have dead-winner cases, too bad you can't even come to bat,'" he said.
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