In a landmark lawsuit finding the owners of a Georgia sterilization facility responsible for a resident’s cancer, state appellate judges have upheld the resident’s $70 million in damages, but also upheld the owners’ ability to slash the verdict by two thirds at a new trial.
Jurors in Gwinnett County decided in May last year that Becton, Dickinson and Company and its predecessor, C.R. Bard, were liable for negligence and creating a public nuisance in the case brought by longtime Covington resident Gary Walker.
The retired truck driver alleged he was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma in 2017 because he was unwittingly exposed for decades to a toxic gas emitted from the Covington sterilization facility owned and operated by the companies since the 1960s…