The Class Action Fairness Act passed the Senate this week and is expected to sail through the House next week. Victems of polluters will have a much tougher time taking companies to court when this is enacted.
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Judge Dismisses Agent Orange Lawsuit

Updated 11:13 AM ET March 10, 2005

http://dailynews.att.net/cgi-bin/news?e=pr...88o74580&src=ap

By MICHAEL WEISSENSTEIN

NEW YORK (AP) - A federal judge Thursday dismissed a lawsuit by some 4 million Vietnamese claiming that U.S. chemical companies committed war crimes by making Agent Orange for use during the Vietnam War.

U.S. District Judge Jack B. Weinstein disagreed that allegedly toxic defoliant and similar U.S. herbicides should be considered poisons banned under international rules of war, even though they may have had comparable effects on people and land.

The Brooklyn judge also found that the plaintiffs could not prove that Agent Orange had caused their illnesses, largely because of a lack of large-scale research.

Plaintiffs' lawyers said an appeal was planned.

The lawsuit was the first attempt by Vietnamese plaintiffs to seek compensation for the effects of Agent Orange, which is laden with the highly toxic chemical dioxin and has been linked to cancer, diabetes and birth defects among Vietnamese soldiers, civilians and American veterans.

U.S. aircraft sprayed more than 21 million gallons of the chemical between 1962 to 1971 in attempts to destroy crops and remove foliage used as cover by communist forces.

Lawyers for Monsanto, Dow Chemical and more than a dozen other companies had said they should not be punished for following what they believed to be the legal orders of the nation's commander in chief.

They also argued that international law generally exempts corporations, as opposed to individuals, from liability for alleged war crimes......