MichaelSol wrote: n012944 wrote: I was responding to your post that had the characertistics of some of things that lower her risks. Why double post them?? I was not intentionally misleading anyone. This is getting bizarre. You posted your "new" opinion on why her risks were higher - I responded by posting both aspects of her risk factors, including the ones that you pointedly left out, the ones that suggested a lower risk for her. And you left them out because they did not support your agenda to show that BN cannot, ever, be at fault for anything. And that is your agenda, which you clearly stated: n012944 wrote: I am just showing how it could not be the BN's fault. You seem to have already made your judgement on this case, I have not. This is gibberish, and pretty much how these threads end up, with these same participants. Time for the lock.
n012944 wrote: I was responding to your post that had the characertistics of some of things that lower her risks. Why double post them?? I was not intentionally misleading anyone.
I was responding to your post that had the characertistics of some of things that lower her risks. Why double post them?? I was not intentionally misleading anyone.
This is getting bizarre. You posted your "new" opinion on why her risks were higher - I responded by posting both aspects of her risk factors, including the ones that you pointedly left out, the ones that suggested a lower risk for her. And you left them out because they did not support your agenda to show that BN cannot, ever, be at fault for anything. And that is your agenda, which you clearly stated:
n012944 wrote: I am just showing how it could not be the BN's fault. You seem to have already made your judgement on this case, I have not.
This is gibberish, and pretty much how these threads end up, with these same participants. Time for the lock.
Just wanted to save this one so you didn't change it.
An "expensive model collector"
n012944 wrote: MichaelSol wrote: n012944 wrote: MichaelSol wrote: vsmith wrote:Interesting, a lifetime of Smoking had nothing to do with it, yeahhh...right!Smoking causes stomach cancer?http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/Tobacco/cancerAccording to the goverment, yes it does."Cigarette smoking causes 87 percent of lung cancer deaths (1). Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death in both men and women (3). Smoking is also responsible for most cancers of the larynx, oral cavity and pharynx, esophagus, and bladder. In addition, it is a cause of kidney, pancreatic, cervical, and stomach cancers (2, 4), as well as acute myeloid leukemia (2)."I am sure that to some people here, the cancer was still caused by the mean old greedy BN, and not a lifetime of abuse of a deadly habit.First you said "no" it isn't, now you say "yes", it is.Internet research is a fickle mistress.You leave out the fact that the rate of stomach cancer in the United States is extremely low. Indeed, to find a correlation between smoking and stomach cancer, one has to go to studies of other populations where stomach cancer rates are much higher, in order to get enough of a sampling to even measure. If she were not a smoker, Linda Faust's risk of stomach cancer would be substantially less than .01% over her lifetime. In the town, the likelihood that someone would develop stomach cancer over a 78 year lifespan is low -- a town of 1700 might see 8 cases over the 78 year period. Linda Faust has an infection with a bacteria known as Helicobacter pylori, which increases the risk of stomach cancer. Combined with smoking, Linda's risk of stomach cancer during her lifetime increased seven-fold, because of the presence of both the bacteria and being a smoker. All the way up to three hundredths of a percent risk. On the other hand, Linda Faust represents several conditions that show reduced risk of stomach cancer. I don't know why you would have left that out. Perhaps an unintentional oversight.Linda is a Caucasian female, age 47. All of these represent lower risk factors, because men tend to develop stomach cancer more often than woman, Hispanics and Blacks more frequently than Caucasians, and most people develop stomach cancer in their 60s, 70s, and 80s.Given a higher risk because of smoking and H. pylori, Linda enjoys a reduced risk because of her demographic. Statistically, it is still unlikely that Linda would develop stomach cancer, and particularly at the age that she was diagnosed with it.Over a ten year period, a town the size of Somerville might be likely to develop, at most, one case of stomach cancer, most likely in Hispanic man over the age of 60. The town itself, at this point in time, statistically should have no cases of stomach cancer. It has 12 such cases. Linda is part of a cluster of stomach cancer cases which is over 60 times the national rate of stomach cancer.Because she belongs to a demographic that, even with smoking, is less likely to get stomach cancer, because she got it at a substantially earlier age than is typical for stomach cancer victims, and because she is part of very unusual cluster.As with most comments in this vein, the idea here is obviously to offer something off the internet, and conclude "she smokes, she got stomach cancer, she deserves it." And if "mean old greedy BN" just happened to put known carcinogens into the air, water, and ground for well over 30 years -- well, that just proves it must be Linda's fault!As usual, with contentions offered by certain specific posters, closer evaluation all too often tells a different story -- and it's interesting how often this seems to be true with certain posters, when more, rather than fewer, facts are brought to bear.It is obvious that this particular poster brings a personal animus to the discussion -- he's posted twice just to engage in personal attacks. He does it on nearly every thread I ever post to. This is the third post, and his reference to "mean old greedy BN" in the sarcastic fashion makes it clear that he has his mind made up on this serious event, and it has nothing to do with the facts at all.Rather, and this goes to my initial gripe: it is the knee-jerk reaction that governs certain posters, notwithstanding any facts to the contrary: "railroad good, people bad".Always.No matter what. I didn't leave anything out. I answered a question that YOU asked. There is a link between smoking and stomach cancer.Whatever the BN did, Linda also put a known carcinogen into her body by smoking. Which by the way DOUBLES her chance of stomach cancer.There are many things that we don't know about Linda that also could increase her risk for cancer. Was she overweight? Does stomach cancer run in her family? Did she have some sort of stomach surgey before she had cancer? Does she have type A blood? All of these increase the chance for stomach cancer. Here is the kicker, there is a chance that any of these things where to blame for Linda's cancer. And btw I don't feel that ANYONE deserves to have cancer, no matter what they have done in their lifetime, and I am not quite sure why you would imply that I would. As for my two other postings, you chastised other posters for judging from afar, but is seems that you are a An "expensive model collector" MichaelSol Member sinceOctober 2004 3,190 posts Posted by MichaelSol on Friday, January 11, 2008 9:43 PM n012944 wrote: I was responding to your post that had the characertistics of some of things that lower her risks. Why double post them?? I was not intentionally misleading anyone. This is getting bizarre. You posted your "new" opinion on why her risks were higher - I responded by posting both aspects of her risk factors, including the ones that you pointedly left out, the ones that suggested a lower risk for her. And you left them out because they did not support your agenda to show that BN cannot, ever, be at fault for anything. And that is your agenda, which you clearly stated: n012944 wrote: I am just showing how it could not be the BN's fault. You seem to have already made your judgement on this case, I have not. This is gibberish, and pretty much how these threads end up, with these same participants. Time for the lock. matthewsaggie Member sinceAugust 2006 From: Matthews NC 363 posts Posted by matthewsaggie on Friday, January 11, 2008 9:36 PM I am going to stay away from the legal issues here, though I think Mr. Sol makes some valid points. I will say that in the period from 1970 to 1974, when I attended university 20 miles away from Sommerville, I used to go there often to photograph trains (I have some great pictures of the Texas Chief with ASTF F-units, along with blue F's on the sulphur train. I will say that the creosote was everywhere in the town. You could smell it from 2-3 miles out of town, they were burning ties in the open one time I saw, the ground around the tie plant was black with it, it was tracked onto the sidewalks and even the station platform and probably through out the town. Just what I saw at the time. n012944 Member sinceAugust 2004 From: The 17th hole at TPC 2,270 posts Posted by n012944 on Friday, January 11, 2008 9:31 PM MichaelSol wrote: selector wrote: Michael, I got a lot out of your long reply above, two or three posts higher. Nothing personal, but I offer this comment: I didn't get a lot out of the first two lines, and not from the last 15 or so, where you were making a general comment about how others participate. I had hoped we could move beyond that in an attempt to keep focused on the issues and debate them.-CrandellWell, I suppose the fact that he stated that I called someone a "moron" earlier -- a false statement just designed to stir the pot -- and that he used the words "mean old greedy BN" weren't meant to bring his usual mistatements and antagonisms to this thread. There's a history with this gentlemen. Its like a moth to a flame.And yes, my comments do go to how he participates, and to his motives for doing so. His first two posts here were clearly designed to start a fight, and when that didn't work, he posted something exactly the opposite of what he earlier stated -- demonstrating that the facts clearly don't matter with this individual -- he's got a different purpose here and its not honest discussion. Again, I admit that I was wrong in my first post, SMOKING DOES CAUSE STOMACH CANCER. I was under the impression that it didn't, and I was wrong. I am not sure why you keep on this one. An "expensive model collector" solzrules Member sinceJanuary 2006 From: SE Wisconsin 1,181 posts Posted by solzrules on Friday, January 11, 2008 9:30 PM MichaelSol wrote: solzrules wrote:[ They found creosote in the attic, right? Why didn't they find it next to the washing machine where she washed the clothes? I suppose she kept her house clean.I can't possibly believe that is your only response to this. You think this is bad? Just wait until inflation kicks in..... selector Member sinceFebruary 2005 From: Vancouver Island, BC 23,330 posts Posted by selector on Friday, January 11, 2008 9:25 PM Well, the gentleman has thrown out an olive branch of sorts, admitting that he has made an error. Perhaps that will permit us to move forward? Can we accept that there was a mix-up, a misapprehension, and now finalize this thread in some way? We humans sure live complicated lives. We learn, too late, that we will all die from something, and often it is from ignorance in an early pursuit. If we go to far with the logic of recompense, we will all have to go back to where our great, great, great grandparents lived and cede our homes to the aboriginals. And every other thing that was right back then and wrong now. Once again, the courts will have to determine what was contravened and what was known. Additionally, liability must be clearly established in light of the policies and laws extant when the alleged misdeeds were carried out...on all sides.My final comment, I hope, is that we can move forward. Please. Let's try.-Crandell n012944 Member sinceAugust 2004 From: The 17th hole at TPC 2,270 posts Posted by n012944 on Friday, January 11, 2008 9:23 PM MichaelSol wrote: n012944 wrote: There is a link between smoking and stomach cancer.Whatever the BN did, Linda also put a known carcinogen into her body by smoking. Which by the way DOUBLES her chance of stomach cancer.There are many things that we don't know about Linda that also could increase her risk for cancer. Was she overweight? Does stomach cancer run in her family? Did she have some sort of stomach surgey before she had cancer? Does she have type A blood? And you intentionally left out all of the characertistics that demonstrate a lowered risk of stomach cancer in people like Linda. And there is no good reason to intentionally mislead people except to try and prove that this is Linda Faust's fault because you like that idea of personal blame and that's your agenda here for some weird reason. Frankly doesn't have much to do with the discussion.The fact is that 99.9% of people who smoke don't get stomach cancer. And this is why the studies are carefully worded that smoking "can" cause stomach cancer, because it actually usually doesn't and the link is tenuous. Is the cancer/illness link to creosote, PCP's and Dioxin "tenuous"?Not on your life. I was responding to your post that had the characertistics of some of things that lower her risks. Why double post them?? I was not intentionally misleading anyone. You have no idea what my intentions are, and stop acting as though you do. I am not trying to prove that it was this womans fault for getting cancer. If I was why would I bring up blood type or family history factors? These are no ones "fault." I am just showing how it could not be the BN's fault. You seem to have already made your judgement on this case, I have not. There are alot of reasons as to why this woman could have cancer, and smoking is only one of them. An "expensive model collector" MichaelSol Member sinceOctober 2004 3,190 posts Posted by MichaelSol on Friday, January 11, 2008 9:21 PM solzrules wrote: They found creosote in the attic, right? Why didn't they find it next to the washing machine where she washed the clothes? I suppose she kept her house clean? Your post is mainly an anti-lawyer rant. Aside from a profound misunderstanding of the system, I see no place for that on Trains forums. If you are so interested in people's motives -- go back to 1975, when the Santa Fe Railroad was on plenty of notice by that time that creosote and PCP represented profound health hazards, and what their motive was for making what I suspect was -- it practically had to be -- a conscious decision to not spend $25 million on retrofitting that tie plant, knowing that by refusing to do so, they would continue to release known carcinogens into a town's air, water and soil.Go back to page 1 of this thread: mudchicken wrote: Amen - Santa Fe and Kirby Lumber were more than a little obsessed with the toxic aspects of the treating plant. Especially where large amounts of chemical were involved. (My experience goes back into the eighties)Except that the sworn testimony of company officers says the exact opposite. That they chose not to be "more than a little obsessed" when it came to this plant, and that the decision "not to be obsessed" was, to the Santa Fe Railroad, all about money, at the known risk to people's health and lives.The "little people" you are concerned about, by the way, who don't have high paid consultants and high paid lawyers with unlimited litigation budgets at their disposal and probably didn't see any stock options or bonuses either when that extra $25 million came out to the bottom line. solzrules Member sinceJanuary 2006 From: SE Wisconsin 1,181 posts Posted by solzrules on Friday, January 11, 2008 9:19 PM MichaelSol wrote: A town with a tie treatment plant, a town practically saturated in creosote, and the creosote came from somewhere else? Yes, that is possible. Many industries use creosote to treat wood. The power company uses it to treat electric poles - otherwise we would be replacing those every 4 years too. Lumber companies in the days before pressure treated wood (the green stuff) used creosote to treat structural lumber. Drilling through 120 year old wood stinks REAL bad. Yes, I'll admit that the fact that there is a tie plant in the town would be the obvious source, but the are other sources too. Her husband worked for the plant for 30 some years and he is fine. His wife is not. And this was the only town that used creosote treated joists -- or had a high incidence of cancer from them? My point being there are other sources of creosote, some of them a lot closer to the house where this woman lived for 30 years than the tie plant that was a mile away. They found creosote in the attic, right? Why didn't they find it next to the washing machine where she washed the clothes? Or in the dresser where they kept those clothes? Did anyone test the lumber in the house? Whew, a creosote plant, dioxin, a chip burner with no pollution controls, old ties burned out in the open, a creosote-polluted water supply, the plant manager didn't know that creosote was dangerous, the safety committee was never told anything about the stuff, 200 people in a town of 1700 have [or had] various rare cancers .... and the railroad had "nothing to do with it?" That needs to proven, and I'll give you this - based on your posts that I've read I'll admit that this isn't nearly as frivilous as I first assumed. But you have written the railroad off as being responsible for the problem when that hasn't been proven. Obviously I am sympathetic with the family - cancer is not an easy thing to deal with and it can be very hard on the family. I doubt there are many people here who haven't known someone that was affected by cancer. But I'll ask this - is there a proven link between creosote and cancer? I do not accept lawyers spouting statistics that conveniently support their lawsuit as scientific certainty. News item:Some workers in Somerville say that ... workers there handled creosote with their bare hands and wore it home on their clothes. They say workers even burned treated ties at night, spreading what they say were toxic fumes over the town. Now, some say that exposure is killing them. "The problem is we don't know what we're catching because every cancer seems to be some rare form of cancer," said Dennis Davis, who can rattle off more than two dozen people from Somerville with cancer. "It's like a plague has come down on us." This year, he joined the list. "(The doctors) diagnosed that I have pancreatic cancer," he said. Pancreatic cancer is not rare, people die from that all the time. My best friend's mother died from it, and believe me, to my best friend it seemed like the rarest form of cancer in the world. This was probably because only he had to deal with his mother passing away over a two year period - no one else seemed to care. When you go through something like that, you tend to feel very alone. Next question - how many of these people making claims against the factory are in good health and suing the plant? Are they still employed? That's why Davis joined a list of more than 160 other Somerville residents touched by cancer taking on the railway in a company town. "This has been the most horrific, awful thing I've been involved in my entire life and it's sad and sickening," he said. I don't think anyone would debate that cancer is horrific. But it is not limited to those who lived near the tie plant. Faust never worked at the plant, but her husband does, and ... she laundered his clothes blanketed with creosote. She says she ate vegetables from her garden, which she now believes was tainted with ash from the improperly burned creosote. Her garden was trimmed with railroad ties. All of these things need to be proven. At this point, she is trying to play to a sympathetic jury - I have cancer and I beleive it come for so and so. Yes, the company will appear to be taking candy from a baby in that they are questioning her motives, but then again if someone decided they are dying from lung cancer and they believe it was because of oak sawdust (proven to cause lung cancer by the way, the stuff is like asbestos), and HEY! guess what, you took up woodworking as a hobby 30 years ago and you have been cutting that stuff every day in your garage what are you going to do? Roll over and acquiesce? "I handled it daily," she said. "We were told it wouldn't hurt us." The creosote got into the water supply. She drank toxic stew with every drink of water.There are a great many things that get into the water supply that you drink every day. Proof? Where is the evidence that she has? This would be something for the civil case, I guess.The argument that she might have gotten cancer anyway is an old and cruel defense tactic: "she was probably going to die anyway, so what if we also poisoned her and just sped it up?"There is always a problem of ultimate causation of cancer in humans; however, it's not a defense to say we could just let this stuff go all over, on the workers, in their clothes, in the air, into their food, and into their water -- even though we know it is carcenogenic and just forgot to tell the plant manager -- because they were all going to die someday from something, and whatever they die from its probably their own fault anyway.No one on here is making that argument, not even close. Let's not sensationalize. You think this is bad? Just wait until inflation kicks in..... MichaelSol Member sinceOctober 2004 3,190 posts Posted by MichaelSol on Friday, January 11, 2008 9:04 PM n012944 wrote: There is a link between smoking and stomach cancer.Whatever the BN did, Linda also put a known carcinogen into her body by smoking. Which by the way DOUBLES her chance of stomach cancer.There are many things that we don't know about Linda that also could increase her risk for cancer. Was she overweight? Does stomach cancer run in her family? Did she have some sort of stomach surgey before she had cancer? Does she have type A blood? And you intentionally left out all of the characertistics that demonstrate a reduced risk of stomach cancer in people like Linda. And there is no good reason to intentionally mislead people except to try and prove that this is Linda Faust's fault because you like that idea of personal blame and that's your agenda here for some weird reason. Frankly doesn't have much to do with the discussion.The fact is that 99.9% of people who smoke don't get stomach cancer. And this is why the studies are carefully worded that smoking "can" cause stomach cancer, because it actually usually doesn't and the link is tenuous. Is the cancer/illness link to creosote, PCP's and Dioxin "tenuous"?Not on your life. MichaelSol Member sinceOctober 2004 3,190 posts Posted by MichaelSol on Friday, January 11, 2008 8:49 PM selector wrote: Michael, I got a lot out of your long reply above, two or three posts higher. Nothing personal, but I offer this comment: I didn't get a lot out of the first two lines, and not from the last 15 or so, where you were making a general comment about how others participate. I had hoped we could move beyond that in an attempt to keep focused on the issues and debate them.-CrandellWell, I suppose the fact that he stated that I called someone a "moron" earlier -- a false statement just designed to stir the pot -- and that he used the words "mean old greedy BN" weren't meant to bring his usual mistatements and antagonisms to this thread. There's a history with this gentlemen. Its like a moth to a flame.And yes, my comments do go to how he participates, and to his motives for doing so. His first two posts here were clearly designed to start a fight, and when that didn't work, he posted something exactly the opposite of what he earlier stated -- demonstrating that the facts clearly don't matter with this individual -- he's got a different purpose here and its not honest discussion. n012944 Member sinceAugust 2004 From: The 17th hole at TPC 2,270 posts Posted by n012944 on Friday, January 11, 2008 8:42 PM MichaelSol wrote: n012944 wrote:I didn't leave anything out. I answered a question that YOU asked. And this is what you said: n012944 wrote: MichaelSol wrote: vsmith wrote:Interesting, a lifetime of Smoking had nothing to do with it, yeahhh...right!Smoking causes stomach cancer?No, but according to a couple of web sites I visited, neither does creosote.No, then yes, then maybe ... do I get this impression you just want to argue? You do this every thread. I will admit that I was wrong at first. After doing some futher reasearch, I found out that there is a link between the two. An "expensive model collector" selector Member sinceFebruary 2005 From: Vancouver Island, BC 23,330 posts Posted by selector on Friday, January 11, 2008 8:37 PM Michael, I got a lot out of your long reply above, two or three posts higher. Nothing personal, but I offer this comment: I didn't get a lot out of the first two lines, and not from the last 15 or so, where you were making a general comment about how others participate. I had hoped we could move beyond that in an attempt to keep focused on the issues and debate them.-Crandell MichaelSol Member sinceOctober 2004 3,190 posts Posted by MichaelSol on Friday, January 11, 2008 8:35 PM n012944 wrote:I didn't leave anything out. I answered a question that YOU asked. And this is what you said: n012944 wrote: MichaelSol wrote: vsmith wrote:Interesting, a lifetime of Smoking had nothing to do with it, yeahhh...right!Smoking causes stomach cancer?No, but according to a couple of web sites I visited, neither does creosote.No, then yes, then maybe ... do I get this impression you just want to argue? You do this every thread. n012944 Member sinceAugust 2004 From: The 17th hole at TPC 2,270 posts Posted by n012944 on Friday, January 11, 2008 8:27 PM MichaelSol wrote: n012944 wrote: MichaelSol wrote: vsmith wrote:Interesting, a lifetime of Smoking had nothing to do with it, yeahhh...right!Smoking causes stomach cancer?http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/Tobacco/cancerAccording to the goverment, yes it does."Cigarette smoking causes 87 percent of lung cancer deaths (1). Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death in both men and women (3). Smoking is also responsible for most cancers of the larynx, oral cavity and pharynx, esophagus, and bladder. In addition, it is a cause of kidney, pancreatic, cervical, and stomach cancers (2, 4), as well as acute myeloid leukemia (2)."I am sure that to some people here, the cancer was still caused by the mean old greedy BN, and not a lifetime of abuse of a deadly habit.First you said "no" it isn't, now you say "yes", it is.Internet research is a fickle mistress.You leave out the fact that the rate of stomach cancer in the United States is extremely low. Indeed, to find a correlation between smoking and stomach cancer, one has to go to studies of other populations where stomach cancer rates are much higher, in order to get enough of a sampling to even measure. If she were not a smoker, Linda Faust's risk of stomach cancer would be substantially less than .01% over her lifetime. In the town, the likelihood that someone would develop stomach cancer over a 78 year lifespan is low -- a town of 1700 might see 8 cases over the 78 year period. Linda Faust has an infection with a bacteria known as Helicobacter pylori, which increases the risk of stomach cancer. Combined with smoking, Linda's risk of stomach cancer during her lifetime increased seven-fold, because of the presence of both the bacteria and being a smoker. All the way up to three hundredths of a percent risk. On the other hand, Linda Faust represents several conditions that show reduced risk of stomach cancer. I don't know why you would have left that out. Perhaps an unintentional oversight.Linda is a Caucasian female, age 47. All of these represent lower risk factors, because men tend to develop stomach cancer more often than woman, Hispanics and Blacks more frequently than Caucasians, and most people develop stomach cancer in their 60s, 70s, and 80s.Given a higher risk because of smoking and H. pylori, Linda enjoys a reduced risk because of her demographic. Statistically, it is still unlikely that Linda would develop stomach cancer, and particularly at the age that she was diagnosed with it.Over a ten year period, a town the size of Somerville might be likely to develop, at most, one case of stomach cancer, most likely in Hispanic man over the age of 60. The town itself, at this point in time, statistically should have no cases of stomach cancer. It has 12 such cases. Linda is part of a cluster of stomach cancer cases which is over 60 times the national rate of stomach cancer.Because she belongs to a demographic that, even with smoking, is less likely to get stomach cancer, because she got it at a substantially earlier age than is typical for stomach cancer victims, and because she is part of very unusual cluster.As with most comments in this vein, the idea here is obviously to offer something off the internet, and conclude "she smokes, she got stomach cancer, she deserves it." And if "mean old greedy BN" just happened to put known carcinogens into the air, water, and ground for well over 30 years -- well, that just proves it must be Linda's fault!As usual, with contentions offered by certain specific posters, closer evaluation all too often tells a different story -- and it's interesting how often this seems to be true with certain posters, when more, rather than fewer, facts are brought to bear.It is obvious that this particular poster brings a personal animus to the discussion -- he's posted twice just to engage in personal attacks. He does it on nearly every thread I ever post to. This is the third post, and his reference to "mean old greedy BN" in the sarcastic fashion makes it clear that he has his mind made up on this serious event, and it has nothing to do with the facts at all.Rather, and this goes to my initial gripe: it is the knee-jerk reaction that governs certain posters, notwithstanding any facts to the contrary: "railroad good, people bad".Always.No matter what. I didn't leave anything out. I answered a question that YOU asked. There is a link between smoking and stomach cancer.Whatever the BN did, Linda also put a known carcinogen into her body by smoking. Which by the way DOUBLES her chance of stomach cancer.There are many things that we don't know about Linda that also could increase her risk for cancer. Was she overweight? Does stomach cancer run in her family? Did she have some sort of stomach surgey before she had cancer? Does she have type A blood? All of these increase the chance for stomach cancer. Here is the kicker, there is a chance that any of these things where to blame for Linda's cancer. And btw I don't feel that ANYONE deserves to have cancer, no matter what they have done in their lifetime, and I am not quite sure why you would imply that I would. As for my two other postings, you chastised other posters for judging from afar, but is seems that you are already doing that. An "expensive model collector" MichaelSol Member sinceOctober 2004 3,190 posts Posted by MichaelSol on Friday, January 11, 2008 7:58 PM n012944 wrote: MichaelSol wrote: vsmith wrote:Interesting, a lifetime of Smoking had nothing to do with it, yeahhh...right!Smoking causes stomach cancer?http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/Tobacco/cancerAccording to the goverment, yes it does."Cigarette smoking causes 87 percent of lung cancer deaths (1). Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death in both men and women (3). Smoking is also responsible for most cancers of the larynx, oral cavity and pharynx, esophagus, and bladder. In addition, it is a cause of kidney, pancreatic, cervical, and stomach cancers (2, 4), as well as acute myeloid leukemia (2)."I am sure that to some people here, the cancer was still caused by the mean old greedy BN, and not a lifetime of abuse of a deadly habit.First you said "no" it isn't, now you say "yes", it is.Internet research is a fickle mistress.You leave out the fact that the rate of stomach cancer in the United States is extremely low. Indeed, to find a correlation between smoking and stomach cancer, one has to go to studies of other populations where stomach cancer rates are much higher, in order to get enough of a sampling to even measure. If she were not a smoker, Linda Faust's risk of stomach cancer would be substantially less than .01% over her lifetime. In the town, the likelihood that someone would develop stomach cancer over a 78 year lifespan is low -- a town of 1700 might see 8 cases over the 78 year period. Linda Faust has an infection with a bacteria known as Helicobacter pylori, which increases the risk of stomach cancer. Combined with smoking, Linda's risk of stomach cancer during her lifetime increased seven-fold, because of the presence of both the bacteria and being a smoker. All the way up to three hundredths of a percent risk. A very small risk times 7 is still a very small risk. Another way of looking it -- 99% of people who smoke don't get stomach cancer. And this is why the studies are carefully worded that smoking "can" cause stomach cancer, because it actually usually doesn't. In addition, Linda Faust represents several conditions that show reduced risk of stomach cancer. I don't know why you would have left that out. Linda is a Caucasian female, age 47. All of these represent lower risk factors, because men tend to develop stomach cancer more often than woman, Hispanics and Blacks more frequently than Caucasians, and most people develop stomach cancer in their 60s, 70s, and 80s.Given a higher risk because of smoking and H. pylori, Linda enjoys a reduced risk because of her demographic. Statistically, it is still unlikely that Linda would develop stomach cancer, and particularly at the age that she was diagnosed with it.Over a ten year period, a town the size of Somerville might be likely to develop, at most, one case of stomach cancer, most likely in a Hispanic man over the age of 60. The town itself, at this point in time, statistically should have no cases of stomach cancer. It has 12 such cases. Linda is part of a cluster of stomach cancer cases which is over 60 times the national rate of stomach cancer.Because she belongs to a demographic that, even with smoking, is less likely to get stomach cancer, because she got it at a substantially earlier age than is typical for stomach cancer victims, and because she is part of very unusual cluster, I think this fairly raises the question of causation: something caused stomach cancers in people unlikely to get stomach cancer, and a very unlikely circumstance to develop it in such numbers. Does a factory producing known carcinogens offer an explanation?I think it has to. And I think it is completely reasonable for these people to question the source of their illnesses and the management of that tie plant and their actions.As with most comments in this vein, however, with the poster the idea here is obviously to offer something off the internet, and conclude "she smokes, she got stomach cancer, she deserves it." And if "mean old greedy BN" just happened to put known carcinogens into the air, water, and ground for well over 30 years -- well, that just proves it must be Linda's fault!As usual, with contentions offered by certain specific posters, closer evaluation all too often tells a different story -- and it's interesting how often this seems to be true with certain posters, when more, rather than fewer, facts are brought to bear.It is obvious that this particular poster brings a personal animus to the discussion -- he's posted twice just to engage in personal attacks. He does it on nearly every thread I ever post to. This is the third post of his on this thread, and his reference to "mean old greedy BN" in the sarcastic fashion makes it clear that he has his mind made up on this serious event, and it has nothing to do with the facts at all.Rather, and this goes to my initial gripe: it is the knee-jerk reaction that governs certain posters, notwithstanding any facts to the contrary: "railroad good, people bad".Always.No matter what. selector Member sinceFebruary 2005 From: Vancouver Island, BC 23,330 posts Posted by selector on Friday, January 11, 2008 7:57 PM Yeessss! A focused and robust reply that stands on its own. Now we can debate this nicely and with a reasonable purpose. n012944 Member sinceAugust 2004 From: The 17th hole at TPC 2,270 posts Posted by n012944 on Friday, January 11, 2008 6:44 PM MichaelSol wrote: vsmith wrote:Interesting, a lifetime of Smoking had nothing to do with it, yeahhh...right!Smoking causes stomach cancer? http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/Tobacco/cancerAccording to the goverment, yes it does."Cigarette smoking causes 87 percent of lung cancer deaths (1). Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death in both men and women (3). Smoking is also responsible for most cancers of the larynx, oral cavity and pharynx, esophagus, and bladder. In addition, it is a cause of kidney, pancreatic, cervical, and stomach cancers (2, 4), as well as acute myeloid leukemia (2)."I am sure that to some people here, the cancer was still caused by the mean old greedy BN, and not a lifetime of abuse of a deadly habit. An "expensive model collector" selector Member sinceFebruary 2005 From: Vancouver Island, BC 23,330 posts Posted by selector on Friday, January 11, 2008 5:48 PM AT&SF, this is one of my pet peeves. I know for a fact that there are many erudite, educated, informed, and intelligent people, probably quite busy...so not here often...who rarely pipe up and add some clout and perspective to the expressions of those who go to a lot of trouble to bolster their positions with documentation, press releases, statements of proceedings, minutes of meetings, and so on...as and when they are available. Even if they are not schooled in the topic, they can at least recognize a reasoned approach to a given side of the argument. Yet, we get shrillness and denials, contradictions, with no proferred evidence to support them that go on and on.I have been accused of being impartial as a moderator. Guilty...a thousand times guilty. I will always jump in when I know that someone is being driven from a forum because his reasoning is contrary to opinion when the opinion is unsubstantiable and the reasoning robust. Opinions are like hair follicles...we all have them. They are merely fatuous when they are not offered in sincerity, with supporting facts, and then left for the judgment of other readers without resorting to ad hominems arguments in an attempt to improve them.When I start to see robust counter arguments come from members who really have a solid grip on the facts, no one will be more pleased than I. It will mean I can go on and address other issues elsewhere. But the personal and directed comments have no place here, for the record, and I won't let them pass. As I said in my posted sticky last week, if you are out of ammo, or if the other person is willfully intransigent, then withdraw....it's that simple. State you have nothing further to add, and be done with it. They're only marbles after all.So, to you, Sir, thank-you for adding some dignity to this discussion, and to your status as a bona fide member. I hope your example and contrition will inspire others to join in, even if every single one goes against Michael. But more involvement from a responsible membership would be helpful to settle these things than the same voices all the time...either side.-Crandell AT&SF Member sinceJuly 2006 25 posts Posted by AT&SF on Friday, January 11, 2008 5:21 PM Mr. Sol- I applaud your efforts in trying to educate the posters on this matter. As an Attorney for the last 30 years and former ATSF employee I have sat here ashamedly and done nothing as I read the mind less drivel spouted by the ignorant individuals that dismiss the justice system as tainted by greedy lawyers and opportunists, with little if any insight into the merits of the claim or a working understanding of the civil justice system as it involves railroads or any other enterprise in our society. So I salute you and your efforts, but wonder if it has any effect. MichaelSol Member sinceOctober 2004 3,190 posts Posted by MichaelSol on Friday, January 11, 2008 4:52 PM selector wrote: Frivolity is in the eyes of the beholder. It is as clear to me that some cases are frivolous as that some judges err in supporting them...or denying them. This is evinced by the levying of costs and then countersuits against the plaintifs. Turnabout is fair play.I've got a frivolous lawsuit sitting on my desk at the moment, filed by what I can only assess by the manner and tone of the complaint a complete nitwit, against one of my corporate clients. Filed pro se, incidentally, because he couldn't find a lawyer who would handle it for him. It won't go far, but it is the price to be paid for having a system of laws and rights, and a relatively open access to the court system to make the laws and rights meaningful. I supose we could eliminate frivolous lawsuits, doctors commiting malpractice, bankers embezzling, robbery, murder, corporate accountants loading off-balance entities with corporate funds, excessive compensation for CEOs, lying politicians, careless workers, and any other set of complaints about real life, but for every freedom, there is the price of abuse built-in. Given the alternatives, perhaps it's not so bad after all. eolafan Member sinceDecember 2001 From: Aurora, IL 4,515 posts Posted by eolafan on Friday, January 11, 2008 4:35 PM Whatever Eolafan (a.k.a. Jim) MichaelSol Member sinceOctober 2004 3,190 posts Posted by MichaelSol on Friday, January 11, 2008 4:20 PM eolafan wrote: MichaelSol wrote: sgtbean1 wrote: eolafan wrote:You'll have to excuse us novices who look at such litigation with something of a jaundiced eye as we do so based on the extreme levels of unjustified litigation in this country in recent decades. You can't deny there's a level of truth to that either.Actually, I do deny that. Maybe I don't get out much, but the cases I see, even the headline makers, almost always have a sound basis for the jury award, although one of the key causes of high verdicts in some cases is simple corporate arrogance, brought into the courtroom by arrogant corporate counsel. And, the jury gets mad. The Ford Motor Co. Pinto case is a good example. The jury there heard the testimony that Ford's actuarial calculations on the Pinto gas tank design would "only" result in 8 deaths per year, and that Ford could fight off the resulting litigation far more cheaply than the cost of building the safer tank and supporting structure. It was the corporation's decision to choose litigation as the result of choosing a design they knew would result in deaths, rather than choosing an alternative to a safer design.They built the cost of knowingly killing people into the manufacturing cost and calculated rate of return on the Ford Pinto -- "the Barbeque that seats four".Then, "corporate counsel" argued to the jury that the company had every right to build a design that they knew would kill people: "the job of the corporation is to make money." It's expensive to handle these cases. Any lawyer handling one has to make an assessment as to the viability of the case -- a purely business judgment since in these cases, the clients don't have the money -- unlike the corporation -- to litigate, and so it is all on the lawyer's dime that the litigation is commenced. It is entirely a personal financial risk on the part the lawyer, and that adds a very clarifying element to assessing the risks of ever filing such a case.OK, yes I did say enough is enough on this post, but after you deny above that there is a horrendous amount of frivolous litigation I can only say two things to you and then I will end my participation in this thread...those two things are...GET "REAL" FELLOW and GET A LIFE!What I am objecting to is your characterization that there is "an extreme level" of frivolous litigation and a "horrendous amount". Based on both experience and the assessment of the reality of the costs of litigation, I am disagreeing with your premise, because I suspect you are basing it on reading a few headlines, and are for some reason anxious to perpetuate a myth. There is always some nut somewhere that will file something, and those are the ones people read about, but they don't represent any measurable reality, and the terms "extreme" and "horrendous" simply misrepresents "real life".Settle down and just listen to yourself. You're coming across pretty poorly by shouting. You've read probably innumerable stories about train derailments. Are you going off to other threads to lecture engineers about their "extreme" and "horrendous" accident rates? Based on your confident knowledge gained from reading the headlines about how to maintain railroads, run trains, and that you are just the guy to tell them how bad off their industry is in "real life"? Let me suggest that "get real" and "get a life" is advice well taken when you decide to lecture others on businesses, industries, and professions you do not, in fact, have experience in.And I'm not trying to be my usual cranky self here, but as I have mentioned before, I appreciate an opinion backed up with facts, courteously presented, and you're not it right now. This thread is about litigation, and whether or not it is "unjustified". I am offering you a perspective on what this kind of litigation can actually mean, and what kind of financial considerations go into both sides of the issue from the standpoint of genuine experience on the matter. If you don't want to participate that's fine, but your attitude that you can lecture people about what you "know" about something that you actually "don't" can be left at the door. selector Member sinceFebruary 2005 From: Vancouver Island, BC 23,330 posts Posted by selector on Friday, January 11, 2008 4:14 PM Everybody was up dancing and having fun, and then the music stopped.Metaphorically, wasn't that what happened? Were not all parties getting exactly what they needed/wanted out of the dance? To me, if the jury buys that there was purposeful, and insidious, obfuscation, negligence, or willful and blatant disregard for known problems and laws and policies extant at the time these problems were germinating, the jury will certainly impose their outrage and fury on the defendants....and God help them. Of course there is emotion in the process....in the absence of emotion there would be little empathy, little care or interest in seeing to the matter. Frivolity is in the eyes of the beholder. It is as clear to me that some cases are frivolous as that some judges err in supporting them...or denying them. This is evinced by the levying of costs and then countersuits against the plaintifs. Turnabout is fair play.Note that these are my opinions. It is the jury's that counts. MichaelSol Member sinceOctober 2004 3,190 posts Posted by MichaelSol on Friday, January 11, 2008 3:48 PM sgtbean1 wrote: MichaelSol wrote: ... I don't know what kind of "emotion" these posters worry about when corporate executives, pulling down milllions of dollars in pay and options, create a condition that they know will ultimately kill people, possibly hundreds -- their own hard-working employees and their families -- causing them to die horrible, painful deaths.Thank you for proving my point, however unintentionally. That's exactly the emotion I refer to. Just so you know: I'm not against you, or the people of Somerville. I'd like to know the facts. And I hope the jury will judge the case on those very facts.It doesn't seem to be the case or the facts that worry you, but whether or not the jury will use "emotion". As I say, when there is evidence of intentional disregard for health and safety that is, in some cases, found to be tantamount to murder, what is an "unemotional" response? If an individual engages in pre-meditated behavior that he knows will kill you, the various levels of manslaughter and murder charges that can be brought require ultimate penalties up to and including life imprisonment and even the death penalty. Are those "emotional" responses? What should a jury award if the allegations are proven -- and judging by the depositions of company officials, admissions of record, there is little doubt on culpability here -- what are the appropriate measures of damages? A hundred bucks? What's a life worth? Part of the economic thinking built into jury verdicts is, in fact, the concept of not just compensation, but punishment -- punitive damages; damages designed to punish and deter intentionally reckless behavior. The reasoning is that, even after compensatory damages are assessed for causing pain, suffering and death, the original motivations may still represent a profit to a corporation -- exactly along the lines of Ford Motor Company's thinking. To protect society, how does a jury "punish"? You might call it emotion -- based solely on the size of the award, but the concept -- that such damages are supposed to be in excess of compensation --is, in fact, based on a recognized economic theory and need.This tie plant didn't get retrofitted with appropriate pollution control equipment at the time that the risks became recognized. I don't know what the costs might have been in 1975 to retrofit a tie plant, but I know that similar pollution control equipment to remove dioxins and other toxic materials from both effluent and combustion gas release was on the order of $25 million or so under other industrial circumstances in the 1970s. That's a chunk of change and what leads me to suspect that there was an intentional decision made at a corporate level on this plant.Using the "Ford Motor Company" method of risk calcuation, over a thirty year period, the investment cost savings of not making the pollution control investment, at 8% amounts to $503 million.Well, that's the means by which a corporation assesses the value of human life that it knows it will be taking "unfairly." And certainly, it does lack the emotional content that you fear may guide human decisions. It is emotion-free. I don't agree that's a good way to always make decisions.If a jury came back with a $100 million award, based on a finding of an intentional tort, the Company in essence is still ahead by a $400 million profit by the avoided expenditure of control and safety equipment over the time frame involved. They will write the check, kicking and screaming and complaining about greedy plaintiffs and unfair juries, and then laugh all the way to the bank as the plaintiffs, one by one, die off in horrible and slow and tragic circumstances which some seem to feel is only designed to appeal to emotion -- rather than representing exactly the suffering inflicted that is supposed to be compensated for by jury awards.And death and suffering are emotional events for people. These aren't carrots. How do you instruct a jury to "not care" about a deformed baby who will never have a normal life because some jerk in charge of safety didn't want to spend the money to keep the creosote out of the air and water?People only get one crack at living, and when some executive takes that opportunity away by making a decision to pad the corporate bottom line and increase his stock options by "saving" some money on pollution control equipment, what is a jury to do?So, what would you consider an "unfair" award, driven by emotion, in a case such as this if the allegations are proven true? At $500 million, the company would break even -- the cost of litigation equals the savings/profit made from the decision. There is no incentive there to prevent the next cruel decision involving the arbitrary taking of human lives in the name of profit. Well, how about $600 million?Enough? Not enough?You might say that the jury award of $3 million per plaintiff is excessive. The jury may be looking at trying to prevent company behavior by removing the financial incentive to kill people -- through the use of punitive damages. You may read the paper and make a conclusion; the jury may have been looking at decision memos -- the ones that the company didn't get destroyed -- that showed a careful, if cruel, calculation.Whose "right" -- you ... or the jury?And what I am trying to point out here is that there is an accepted economic theory for imposing judgments far in excess of actual damages, and specific statutes that permit and define it and, in the broad scheme of things, it is necessary. n012944 Member sinceAugust 2004 From: The 17th hole at TPC 2,270 posts Posted by n012944 on Friday, January 11, 2008 3:44 PM MichaelSol wrote: Krazykat112079 wrote: Based on the data you have produced, MichaelSol, they have suspected that something was amiss since the 70's. Would you not consider then that the town also bears partial responsibility for not addressing the issue 30+ years ago? Good grief.The railroad said that creosote was not dangerous. The plant manager received no warning from the company that there was a problem. The creosote was incinerated in an ordinary incinerator. It was dumped in the creek. Have you complained to a company lately about them poisoing the town?Did you keep your job?I can tell you exactly what happened to any whisteblower in the 1970s. They were fired.They left town.They died of cancer somewhere else; probbly couldn't even afford the medical care and the family went broke.And no one noticed.And I would just bet there are people here who say they deserved it for squealing on their employer. That's how some of you think.In any event, there appears to be a number of suffering people involved. The situation doesn't warrant the usual armchair judgments from afar.The Railroad increased its profits by not installing proper equipment, by not spending any money on training, not lifting a d*** finger to make that plant safe.As an earlier poster said, it's all about greed. Again, what happend to your statement about not judging from afar? Why is it ok for you to judge a company, but when someone else does in a manner that you do not like, they are horrible people. It is sad to see that this has turned into the typical Michael Sol thread, he is right and if you disagree with him then you are a moron. An "expensive model collector" youngengineer Member sinceApril 2006 356 posts Posted by youngengineer on Friday, January 11, 2008 3:10 PM I believe everyone has mixed up I'm suing mcdonalds because I'm fat with people who where knowingly put into harms way. The corporation doesnt care if you die, the corporation doesnt care if your kids have disabilties, the corporation cares about how much money can we make. Michealsol talks from experience, and a lot of his own investigation to come to his conclusions. Maybe the rest of us, should take the time to research our conclusions, or just maybe you should really think about what you want to say.Remember the corporation not only has lawyers but also has a PR firm representing them, do you think that maybe the fake data, or skewed data is a result of the PR firm changing how you look at a case before you even know about the case. 123 Join our Community! Our community is FREE to join. To participate you must either login or register for an account. Login » Register » Search the Community Newsletter Sign-Up By signing up you may also receive occasional reader surveys and special offers from Trains magazine.Please view our privacy policy More great sites from Kalmbach Media Terms Of Use | Privacy Policy | Copyright Policy
MichaelSol wrote: n012944 wrote: MichaelSol wrote: vsmith wrote:Interesting, a lifetime of Smoking had nothing to do with it, yeahhh...right!Smoking causes stomach cancer?http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/Tobacco/cancerAccording to the goverment, yes it does."Cigarette smoking causes 87 percent of lung cancer deaths (1). Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death in both men and women (3). Smoking is also responsible for most cancers of the larynx, oral cavity and pharynx, esophagus, and bladder. In addition, it is a cause of kidney, pancreatic, cervical, and stomach cancers (2, 4), as well as acute myeloid leukemia (2)."I am sure that to some people here, the cancer was still caused by the mean old greedy BN, and not a lifetime of abuse of a deadly habit.First you said "no" it isn't, now you say "yes", it is.Internet research is a fickle mistress.You leave out the fact that the rate of stomach cancer in the United States is extremely low. Indeed, to find a correlation between smoking and stomach cancer, one has to go to studies of other populations where stomach cancer rates are much higher, in order to get enough of a sampling to even measure. If she were not a smoker, Linda Faust's risk of stomach cancer would be substantially less than .01% over her lifetime. In the town, the likelihood that someone would develop stomach cancer over a 78 year lifespan is low -- a town of 1700 might see 8 cases over the 78 year period. Linda Faust has an infection with a bacteria known as Helicobacter pylori, which increases the risk of stomach cancer. Combined with smoking, Linda's risk of stomach cancer during her lifetime increased seven-fold, because of the presence of both the bacteria and being a smoker. All the way up to three hundredths of a percent risk. On the other hand, Linda Faust represents several conditions that show reduced risk of stomach cancer. I don't know why you would have left that out. Perhaps an unintentional oversight.Linda is a Caucasian female, age 47. All of these represent lower risk factors, because men tend to develop stomach cancer more often than woman, Hispanics and Blacks more frequently than Caucasians, and most people develop stomach cancer in their 60s, 70s, and 80s.Given a higher risk because of smoking and H. pylori, Linda enjoys a reduced risk because of her demographic. Statistically, it is still unlikely that Linda would develop stomach cancer, and particularly at the age that she was diagnosed with it.Over a ten year period, a town the size of Somerville might be likely to develop, at most, one case of stomach cancer, most likely in Hispanic man over the age of 60. The town itself, at this point in time, statistically should have no cases of stomach cancer. It has 12 such cases. Linda is part of a cluster of stomach cancer cases which is over 60 times the national rate of stomach cancer.Because she belongs to a demographic that, even with smoking, is less likely to get stomach cancer, because she got it at a substantially earlier age than is typical for stomach cancer victims, and because she is part of very unusual cluster.As with most comments in this vein, the idea here is obviously to offer something off the internet, and conclude "she smokes, she got stomach cancer, she deserves it." And if "mean old greedy BN" just happened to put known carcinogens into the air, water, and ground for well over 30 years -- well, that just proves it must be Linda's fault!As usual, with contentions offered by certain specific posters, closer evaluation all too often tells a different story -- and it's interesting how often this seems to be true with certain posters, when more, rather than fewer, facts are brought to bear.It is obvious that this particular poster brings a personal animus to the discussion -- he's posted twice just to engage in personal attacks. He does it on nearly every thread I ever post to. This is the third post, and his reference to "mean old greedy BN" in the sarcastic fashion makes it clear that he has his mind made up on this serious event, and it has nothing to do with the facts at all.Rather, and this goes to my initial gripe: it is the knee-jerk reaction that governs certain posters, notwithstanding any facts to the contrary: "railroad good, people bad".Always.No matter what.
n012944 wrote: MichaelSol wrote: vsmith wrote:Interesting, a lifetime of Smoking had nothing to do with it, yeahhh...right!Smoking causes stomach cancer?http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/Tobacco/cancerAccording to the goverment, yes it does."Cigarette smoking causes 87 percent of lung cancer deaths (1). Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death in both men and women (3). Smoking is also responsible for most cancers of the larynx, oral cavity and pharynx, esophagus, and bladder. In addition, it is a cause of kidney, pancreatic, cervical, and stomach cancers (2, 4), as well as acute myeloid leukemia (2)."I am sure that to some people here, the cancer was still caused by the mean old greedy BN, and not a lifetime of abuse of a deadly habit.
MichaelSol wrote: vsmith wrote:Interesting, a lifetime of Smoking had nothing to do with it, yeahhh...right!Smoking causes stomach cancer?
vsmith wrote:Interesting, a lifetime of Smoking had nothing to do with it, yeahhh...right!
Smoking causes stomach cancer?
http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/Tobacco/cancer
According to the goverment, yes it does.
"Cigarette smoking causes 87 percent of lung cancer deaths (1). Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death in both men and women (3). Smoking is also responsible for most cancers of the larynx, oral cavity and pharynx, esophagus, and bladder. In addition, it is a cause of kidney, pancreatic, cervical, and stomach cancers (2, 4), as well as acute myeloid leukemia (2)."
I am sure that to some people here, the cancer was still caused by the mean old greedy BN, and not a lifetime of abuse of a deadly habit.
First you said "no" it isn't, now you say "yes", it is.
Internet research is a fickle mistress.
You leave out the fact that the rate of stomach cancer in the United States is extremely low. Indeed, to find a correlation between smoking and stomach cancer, one has to go to studies of other populations where stomach cancer rates are much higher, in order to get enough of a sampling to even measure.
If she were not a smoker, Linda Faust's risk of stomach cancer would be substantially less than .01% over her lifetime. In the town, the likelihood that someone would develop stomach cancer over a 78 year lifespan is low -- a town of 1700 might see 8 cases over the 78 year period.
Linda Faust has an infection with a bacteria known as Helicobacter pylori, which increases the risk of stomach cancer. Combined with smoking, Linda's risk of stomach cancer during her lifetime increased seven-fold, because of the presence of both the bacteria and being a smoker. All the way up to three hundredths of a percent risk.
On the other hand, Linda Faust represents several conditions that show reduced risk of stomach cancer. I don't know why you would have left that out. Perhaps an unintentional oversight.
Linda is a Caucasian female, age 47. All of these represent lower risk factors, because men tend to develop stomach cancer more often than woman, Hispanics and Blacks more frequently than Caucasians, and most people develop stomach cancer in their 60s, 70s, and 80s.
Given a higher risk because of smoking and H. pylori, Linda enjoys a reduced risk because of her demographic. Statistically, it is still unlikely that Linda would develop stomach cancer, and particularly at the age that she was diagnosed with it.
Over a ten year period, a town the size of Somerville might be likely to develop, at most, one case of stomach cancer, most likely in Hispanic man over the age of 60. The town itself, at this point in time, statistically should have no cases of stomach cancer.
It has 12 such cases. Linda is part of a cluster of stomach cancer cases which is over 60 times the national rate of stomach cancer.
Because she belongs to a demographic that, even with smoking, is less likely to get stomach cancer, because she got it at a substantially earlier age than is typical for stomach cancer victims, and because she is part of very unusual cluster.
As with most comments in this vein, the idea here is obviously to offer something off the internet, and conclude "she smokes, she got stomach cancer, she deserves it."
And if "mean old greedy BN" just happened to put known carcinogens into the air, water, and ground for well over 30 years -- well, that just proves it must be Linda's fault!
As usual, with contentions offered by certain specific posters, closer evaluation all too often tells a different story -- and it's interesting how often this seems to be true with certain posters, when more, rather than fewer, facts are brought to bear.
It is obvious that this particular poster brings a personal animus to the discussion -- he's posted twice just to engage in personal attacks. He does it on nearly every thread I ever post to. This is the third post, and his reference to "mean old greedy BN" in the sarcastic fashion makes it clear that he has his mind made up on this serious event, and it has nothing to do with the facts at all.
Rather, and this goes to my initial gripe: it is the knee-jerk reaction that governs certain posters, notwithstanding any facts to the contrary: "railroad good, people bad".
Always.
No matter what.
I didn't leave anything out. I answered a question that YOU asked. There is a link between smoking and stomach cancer.Whatever the BN did, Linda also put a known carcinogen into her body by smoking. Which by the way DOUBLES her chance of stomach cancer.There are many things that we don't know about Linda that also could increase her risk for cancer. Was she overweight? Does stomach cancer run in her family? Did she have some sort of stomach surgey before she had cancer? Does she have type A blood? All of these increase the chance for stomach cancer. Here is the kicker, there is a chance that any of these things where to blame for Linda's cancer. And btw I don't feel that ANYONE deserves to have cancer, no matter what they have done in their lifetime, and I am not quite sure why you would imply that I would. As for my two other postings, you chastised other posters for judging from afar, but is seems that you are a
I am going to stay away from the legal issues here, though I think Mr. Sol makes some valid points. I will say that in the period from 1970 to 1974, when I attended university 20 miles away from Sommerville, I used to go there often to photograph trains (I have some great pictures of the Texas Chief with ASTF F-units, along with blue F's on the sulphur train.
I will say that the creosote was everywhere in the town. You could smell it from 2-3 miles out of town, they were burning ties in the open one time I saw, the ground around the tie plant was black with it, it was tracked onto the sidewalks and even the station platform and probably through out the town. Just what I saw at the time.
MichaelSol wrote: selector wrote: Michael, I got a lot out of your long reply above, two or three posts higher. Nothing personal, but I offer this comment: I didn't get a lot out of the first two lines, and not from the last 15 or so, where you were making a general comment about how others participate. I had hoped we could move beyond that in an attempt to keep focused on the issues and debate them.-CrandellWell, I suppose the fact that he stated that I called someone a "moron" earlier -- a false statement just designed to stir the pot -- and that he used the words "mean old greedy BN" weren't meant to bring his usual mistatements and antagonisms to this thread. There's a history with this gentlemen. Its like a moth to a flame.And yes, my comments do go to how he participates, and to his motives for doing so. His first two posts here were clearly designed to start a fight, and when that didn't work, he posted something exactly the opposite of what he earlier stated -- demonstrating that the facts clearly don't matter with this individual -- he's got a different purpose here and its not honest discussion.
selector wrote: Michael, I got a lot out of your long reply above, two or three posts higher. Nothing personal, but I offer this comment: I didn't get a lot out of the first two lines, and not from the last 15 or so, where you were making a general comment about how others participate. I had hoped we could move beyond that in an attempt to keep focused on the issues and debate them.-Crandell
Michael, I got a lot out of your long reply above, two or three posts higher. Nothing personal, but I offer this comment: I didn't get a lot out of the first two lines, and not from the last 15 or so, where you were making a general comment about how others participate. I had hoped we could move beyond that in an attempt to keep focused on the issues and debate them.
-Crandell
Well, I suppose the fact that he stated that I called someone a "moron" earlier -- a false statement just designed to stir the pot -- and that he used the words "mean old greedy BN" weren't meant to bring his usual mistatements and antagonisms to this thread. There's a history with this gentlemen. Its like a moth to a flame.
And yes, my comments do go to how he participates, and to his motives for doing so. His first two posts here were clearly designed to start a fight, and when that didn't work, he posted something exactly the opposite of what he earlier stated -- demonstrating that the facts clearly don't matter with this individual -- he's got a different purpose here and its not honest discussion.
Again, I admit that I was wrong in my first post, SMOKING DOES CAUSE STOMACH CANCER. I was under the impression that it didn't, and I was wrong. I am not sure why you keep on this one.
MichaelSol wrote: solzrules wrote:[ They found creosote in the attic, right? Why didn't they find it next to the washing machine where she washed the clothes? I suppose she kept her house clean.
solzrules wrote:[ They found creosote in the attic, right? Why didn't they find it next to the washing machine where she washed the clothes?
I suppose she kept her house clean.
I can't possibly believe that is your only response to this.
Well, the gentleman has thrown out an olive branch of sorts, admitting that he has made an error. Perhaps that will permit us to move forward? Can we accept that there was a mix-up, a misapprehension, and now finalize this thread in some way?
We humans sure live complicated lives. We learn, too late, that we will all die from something, and often it is from ignorance in an early pursuit. If we go to far with the logic of recompense, we will all have to go back to where our great, great, great grandparents lived and cede our homes to the aboriginals. And every other thing that was right back then and wrong now. Once again, the courts will have to determine what was contravened and what was known. Additionally, liability must be clearly established in light of the policies and laws extant when the alleged misdeeds were carried out...on all sides.
My final comment, I hope, is that we can move forward. Please. Let's try.
MichaelSol wrote: n012944 wrote: There is a link between smoking and stomach cancer.Whatever the BN did, Linda also put a known carcinogen into her body by smoking. Which by the way DOUBLES her chance of stomach cancer.There are many things that we don't know about Linda that also could increase her risk for cancer. Was she overweight? Does stomach cancer run in her family? Did she have some sort of stomach surgey before she had cancer? Does she have type A blood? And you intentionally left out all of the characertistics that demonstrate a lowered risk of stomach cancer in people like Linda. And there is no good reason to intentionally mislead people except to try and prove that this is Linda Faust's fault because you like that idea of personal blame and that's your agenda here for some weird reason. Frankly doesn't have much to do with the discussion.The fact is that 99.9% of people who smoke don't get stomach cancer. And this is why the studies are carefully worded that smoking "can" cause stomach cancer, because it actually usually doesn't and the link is tenuous. Is the cancer/illness link to creosote, PCP's and Dioxin "tenuous"?Not on your life.
n012944 wrote: There is a link between smoking and stomach cancer.Whatever the BN did, Linda also put a known carcinogen into her body by smoking. Which by the way DOUBLES her chance of stomach cancer.There are many things that we don't know about Linda that also could increase her risk for cancer. Was she overweight? Does stomach cancer run in her family? Did she have some sort of stomach surgey before she had cancer? Does she have type A blood?
And you intentionally left out all of the characertistics that demonstrate a lowered risk of stomach cancer in people like Linda. And there is no good reason to intentionally mislead people except to try and prove that this is Linda Faust's fault because you like that idea of personal blame and that's your agenda here for some weird reason. Frankly doesn't have much to do with the discussion.
The fact is that 99.9% of people who smoke don't get stomach cancer. And this is why the studies are carefully worded that smoking "can" cause stomach cancer, because it actually usually doesn't and the link is tenuous.
Is the cancer/illness link to creosote, PCP's and Dioxin "tenuous"?
Not on your life.
I was responding to your post that had the characertistics of some of things that lower her risks. Why double post them?? I was not intentionally misleading anyone. You have no idea what my intentions are, and stop acting as though you do. I am not trying to prove that it was this womans fault for getting cancer. If I was why would I bring up blood type or family history factors? These are no ones "fault." I am just showing how it could not be the BN's fault. You seem to have already made your judgement on this case, I have not. There are alot of reasons as to why this woman could have cancer, and smoking is only one of them.
solzrules wrote: They found creosote in the attic, right? Why didn't they find it next to the washing machine where she washed the clothes?
I suppose she kept her house clean?
Your post is mainly an anti-lawyer rant. Aside from a profound misunderstanding of the system, I see no place for that on Trains forums.
If you are so interested in people's motives -- go back to 1975, when the Santa Fe Railroad was on plenty of notice by that time that creosote and PCP represented profound health hazards, and what their motive was for making what I suspect was -- it practically had to be -- a conscious decision to not spend $25 million on retrofitting that tie plant, knowing that by refusing to do so, they would continue to release known carcinogens into a town's air, water and soil.
Go back to page 1 of this thread:
mudchicken wrote: Amen - Santa Fe and Kirby Lumber were more than a little obsessed with the toxic aspects of the treating plant. Especially where large amounts of chemical were involved. (My experience goes back into the eighties)
Except that the sworn testimony of company officers says the exact opposite. That they chose not to be "more than a little obsessed" when it came to this plant, and that the decision "not to be obsessed" was, to the Santa Fe Railroad, all about money, at the known risk to people's health and lives.
The "little people" you are concerned about, by the way, who don't have high paid consultants and high paid lawyers with unlimited litigation budgets at their disposal and probably didn't see any stock options or bonuses either when that extra $25 million came out to the bottom line.
MichaelSol wrote: A town with a tie treatment plant, a town practically saturated in creosote, and the creosote came from somewhere else?
A town with a tie treatment plant, a town practically saturated in creosote, and the creosote came from somewhere else?
Yes, that is possible. Many industries use creosote to treat wood. The power company uses it to treat electric poles - otherwise we would be replacing those every 4 years too. Lumber companies in the days before pressure treated wood (the green stuff) used creosote to treat structural lumber. Drilling through 120 year old wood stinks REAL bad. Yes, I'll admit that the fact that there is a tie plant in the town would be the obvious source, but the are other sources too. Her husband worked for the plant for 30 some years and he is fine. His wife is not.
And this was the only town that used creosote treated joists -- or had a high incidence of cancer from them?
My point being there are other sources of creosote, some of them a lot closer to the house where this woman lived for 30 years than the tie plant that was a mile away. They found creosote in the attic, right? Why didn't they find it next to the washing machine where she washed the clothes? Or in the dresser where they kept those clothes? Did anyone test the lumber in the house?
Whew, a creosote plant, dioxin, a chip burner with no pollution controls, old ties burned out in the open, a creosote-polluted water supply, the plant manager didn't know that creosote was dangerous, the safety committee was never told anything about the stuff, 200 people in a town of 1700 have [or had] various rare cancers .... and the railroad had "nothing to do with it?"
That needs to proven, and I'll give you this - based on your posts that I've read I'll admit that this isn't nearly as frivilous as I first assumed. But you have written the railroad off as being responsible for the problem when that hasn't been proven. Obviously I am sympathetic with the family - cancer is not an easy thing to deal with and it can be very hard on the family. I doubt there are many people here who haven't known someone that was affected by cancer. But I'll ask this - is there a proven link between creosote and cancer? I do not accept lawyers spouting statistics that conveniently support their lawsuit as scientific certainty.
News item:Some workers in Somerville say that ... workers there handled creosote with their bare hands and wore it home on their clothes. They say workers even burned treated ties at night, spreading what they say were toxic fumes over the town. Now, some say that exposure is killing them. "The problem is we don't know what we're catching because every cancer seems to be some rare form of cancer," said Dennis Davis, who can rattle off more than two dozen people from Somerville with cancer. "It's like a plague has come down on us." This year, he joined the list. "(The doctors) diagnosed that I have pancreatic cancer," he said.
News item:
Some workers in Somerville say that ... workers there handled creosote with their bare hands and wore it home on their clothes. They say workers even burned treated ties at night, spreading what they say were toxic fumes over the town.
Now, some say that exposure is killing them.
"The problem is we don't know what we're catching because every cancer seems to be some rare form of cancer," said Dennis Davis, who can rattle off more than two dozen people from Somerville with cancer. "It's like a plague has come down on us."
This year, he joined the list.
"(The doctors) diagnosed that I have pancreatic cancer," he said.
Pancreatic cancer is not rare, people die from that all the time. My best friend's mother died from it, and believe me, to my best friend it seemed like the rarest form of cancer in the world. This was probably because only he had to deal with his mother passing away over a two year period - no one else seemed to care. When you go through something like that, you tend to feel very alone.
Next question - how many of these people making claims against the factory are in good health and suing the plant? Are they still employed?
That's why Davis joined a list of more than 160 other Somerville residents touched by cancer taking on the railway in a company town. "This has been the most horrific, awful thing I've been involved in my entire life and it's sad and sickening," he said.
That's why Davis joined a list of more than 160 other Somerville residents touched by cancer taking on the railway in a company town.
"This has been the most horrific, awful thing I've been involved in my entire life and it's sad and sickening," he said.
I don't think anyone would debate that cancer is horrific. But it is not limited to those who lived near the tie plant.
Faust never worked at the plant, but her husband does, and ... she laundered his clothes blanketed with creosote. She says she ate vegetables from her garden, which she now believes was tainted with ash from the improperly burned creosote. Her garden was trimmed with railroad ties.
All of these things need to be proven. At this point, she is trying to play to a sympathetic jury - I have cancer and I beleive it come for so and so. Yes, the company will appear to be taking candy from a baby in that they are questioning her motives, but then again if someone decided they are dying from lung cancer and they believe it was because of oak sawdust (proven to cause lung cancer by the way, the stuff is like asbestos), and HEY! guess what, you took up woodworking as a hobby 30 years ago and you have been cutting that stuff every day in your garage what are you going to do? Roll over and acquiesce?
"I handled it daily," she said. "We were told it wouldn't hurt us." The creosote got into the water supply. She drank toxic stew with every drink of water.
"I handled it daily," she said. "We were told it wouldn't hurt us."
The creosote got into the water supply. She drank toxic stew with every drink of water.
There are a great many things that get into the water supply that you drink every day. Proof? Where is the evidence that she has? This would be something for the civil case, I guess.
The argument that she might have gotten cancer anyway is an old and cruel defense tactic: "she was probably going to die anyway, so what if we also poisoned her and just sped it up?"There is always a problem of ultimate causation of cancer in humans; however, it's not a defense to say we could just let this stuff go all over, on the workers, in their clothes, in the air, into their food, and into their water -- even though we know it is carcenogenic and just forgot to tell the plant manager -- because they were all going to die someday from something, and whatever they die from its probably their own fault anyway.
The argument that she might have gotten cancer anyway is an old and cruel defense tactic: "she was probably going to die anyway, so what if we also poisoned her and just sped it up?"
There is always a problem of ultimate causation of cancer in humans; however, it's not a defense to say we could just let this stuff go all over, on the workers, in their clothes, in the air, into their food, and into their water -- even though we know it is carcenogenic and just forgot to tell the plant manager -- because they were all going to die someday from something, and whatever they die from its probably their own fault anyway.
No one on here is making that argument, not even close. Let's not sensationalize.
And you intentionally left out all of the characertistics that demonstrate a reduced risk of stomach cancer in people like Linda. And there is no good reason to intentionally mislead people except to try and prove that this is Linda Faust's fault because you like that idea of personal blame and that's your agenda here for some weird reason. Frankly doesn't have much to do with the discussion.
MichaelSol wrote: n012944 wrote:I didn't leave anything out. I answered a question that YOU asked. And this is what you said: n012944 wrote: MichaelSol wrote: vsmith wrote:Interesting, a lifetime of Smoking had nothing to do with it, yeahhh...right!Smoking causes stomach cancer?No, but according to a couple of web sites I visited, neither does creosote.No, then yes, then maybe ... do I get this impression you just want to argue? You do this every thread.
n012944 wrote:I didn't leave anything out. I answered a question that YOU asked.
And this is what you said:
n012944 wrote: MichaelSol wrote: vsmith wrote:Interesting, a lifetime of Smoking had nothing to do with it, yeahhh...right!Smoking causes stomach cancer?No, but according to a couple of web sites I visited, neither does creosote.
No, but according to a couple of web sites I visited, neither does creosote.
No, then yes, then maybe ... do I get this impression you just want to argue? You do this every thread.
I will admit that I was wrong at first. After doing some futher reasearch, I found out that there is a link between the two.
I didn't leave anything out. I answered a question that YOU asked. There is a link between smoking and stomach cancer.Whatever the BN did, Linda also put a known carcinogen into her body by smoking. Which by the way DOUBLES her chance of stomach cancer.There are many things that we don't know about Linda that also could increase her risk for cancer. Was she overweight? Does stomach cancer run in her family? Did she have some sort of stomach surgey before she had cancer? Does she have type A blood? All of these increase the chance for stomach cancer. Here is the kicker, there is a chance that any of these things where to blame for Linda's cancer. And btw I don't feel that ANYONE deserves to have cancer, no matter what they have done in their lifetime, and I am not quite sure why you would imply that I would. As for my two other postings, you chastised other posters for judging from afar, but is seems that you are already doing that.
Linda Faust has an infection with a bacteria known as Helicobacter pylori, which increases the risk of stomach cancer. Combined with smoking, Linda's risk of stomach cancer during her lifetime increased seven-fold, because of the presence of both the bacteria and being a smoker. All the way up to three hundredths of a percent risk. A very small risk times 7 is still a very small risk. Another way of looking it -- 99% of people who smoke don't get stomach cancer. And this is why the studies are carefully worded that smoking "can" cause stomach cancer, because it actually usually doesn't.
In addition, Linda Faust represents several conditions that show reduced risk of stomach cancer. I don't know why you would have left that out.
Over a ten year period, a town the size of Somerville might be likely to develop, at most, one case of stomach cancer, most likely in a Hispanic man over the age of 60. The town itself, at this point in time, statistically should have no cases of stomach cancer.
Because she belongs to a demographic that, even with smoking, is less likely to get stomach cancer, because she got it at a substantially earlier age than is typical for stomach cancer victims, and because she is part of very unusual cluster, I think this fairly raises the question of causation: something caused stomach cancers in people unlikely to get stomach cancer, and a very unlikely circumstance to develop it in such numbers.
Does a factory producing known carcinogens offer an explanation?
I think it has to. And I think it is completely reasonable for these people to question the source of their illnesses and the management of that tie plant and their actions.
As with most comments in this vein, however, with the poster the idea here is obviously to offer something off the internet, and conclude "she smokes, she got stomach cancer, she deserves it."
It is obvious that this particular poster brings a personal animus to the discussion -- he's posted twice just to engage in personal attacks. He does it on nearly every thread I ever post to. This is the third post of his on this thread, and his reference to "mean old greedy BN" in the sarcastic fashion makes it clear that he has his mind made up on this serious event, and it has nothing to do with the facts at all.
AT&SF, this is one of my pet peeves. I know for a fact that there are many erudite, educated, informed, and intelligent people, probably quite busy...so not here often...who rarely pipe up and add some clout and perspective to the expressions of those who go to a lot of trouble to bolster their positions with documentation, press releases, statements of proceedings, minutes of meetings, and so on...as and when they are available. Even if they are not schooled in the topic, they can at least recognize a reasoned approach to a given side of the argument. Yet, we get shrillness and denials, contradictions, with no proferred evidence to support them that go on and on.
I have been accused of being impartial as a moderator. Guilty...a thousand times guilty. I will always jump in when I know that someone is being driven from a forum because his reasoning is contrary to opinion when the opinion is unsubstantiable and the reasoning robust. Opinions are like hair follicles...we all have them. They are merely fatuous when they are not offered in sincerity, with supporting facts, and then left for the judgment of other readers without resorting to ad hominems arguments in an attempt to improve them.
When I start to see robust counter arguments come from members who really have a solid grip on the facts, no one will be more pleased than I. It will mean I can go on and address other issues elsewhere. But the personal and directed comments have no place here, for the record, and I won't let them pass. As I said in my posted sticky last week, if you are out of ammo, or if the other person is willfully intransigent, then withdraw....it's that simple. State you have nothing further to add, and be done with it. They're only marbles after all.
So, to you, Sir, thank-you for adding some dignity to this discussion, and to your status as a bona fide member. I hope your example and contrition will inspire others to join in, even if every single one goes against Michael. But more involvement from a responsible membership would be helpful to settle these things than the same voices all the time...either side.
Mr. Sol- I applaud your efforts in trying to educate the posters on this matter. As an Attorney for the last 30 years and former ATSF employee I have sat here ashamedly and done nothing as I read the mind less drivel spouted by the ignorant individuals that dismiss the justice system as tainted by greedy lawyers and opportunists, with little if any insight into the merits of the claim or a working understanding of the civil justice system as it involves railroads or any other enterprise in our society.
So I salute you and your efforts, but wonder if it has any effect.
selector wrote: Frivolity is in the eyes of the beholder. It is as clear to me that some cases are frivolous as that some judges err in supporting them...or denying them. This is evinced by the levying of costs and then countersuits against the plaintifs. Turnabout is fair play.
Frivolity is in the eyes of the beholder. It is as clear to me that some cases are frivolous as that some judges err in supporting them...or denying them. This is evinced by the levying of costs and then countersuits against the plaintifs. Turnabout is fair play.
I've got a frivolous lawsuit sitting on my desk at the moment, filed by what I can only assess by the manner and tone of the complaint a complete nitwit, against one of my corporate clients. Filed pro se, incidentally, because he couldn't find a lawyer who would handle it for him. It won't go far, but it is the price to be paid for having a system of laws and rights, and a relatively open access to the court system to make the laws and rights meaningful. I supose we could eliminate frivolous lawsuits, doctors commiting malpractice, bankers embezzling, robbery, murder, corporate accountants loading off-balance entities with corporate funds, excessive compensation for CEOs, lying politicians, careless workers, and any other set of complaints about real life, but for every freedom, there is the price of abuse built-in. Given the alternatives, perhaps it's not so bad after all.
Whatever
eolafan wrote: MichaelSol wrote: sgtbean1 wrote: eolafan wrote:You'll have to excuse us novices who look at such litigation with something of a jaundiced eye as we do so based on the extreme levels of unjustified litigation in this country in recent decades. You can't deny there's a level of truth to that either.Actually, I do deny that. Maybe I don't get out much, but the cases I see, even the headline makers, almost always have a sound basis for the jury award, although one of the key causes of high verdicts in some cases is simple corporate arrogance, brought into the courtroom by arrogant corporate counsel. And, the jury gets mad. The Ford Motor Co. Pinto case is a good example. The jury there heard the testimony that Ford's actuarial calculations on the Pinto gas tank design would "only" result in 8 deaths per year, and that Ford could fight off the resulting litigation far more cheaply than the cost of building the safer tank and supporting structure. It was the corporation's decision to choose litigation as the result of choosing a design they knew would result in deaths, rather than choosing an alternative to a safer design.They built the cost of knowingly killing people into the manufacturing cost and calculated rate of return on the Ford Pinto -- "the Barbeque that seats four".Then, "corporate counsel" argued to the jury that the company had every right to build a design that they knew would kill people: "the job of the corporation is to make money." It's expensive to handle these cases. Any lawyer handling one has to make an assessment as to the viability of the case -- a purely business judgment since in these cases, the clients don't have the money -- unlike the corporation -- to litigate, and so it is all on the lawyer's dime that the litigation is commenced. It is entirely a personal financial risk on the part the lawyer, and that adds a very clarifying element to assessing the risks of ever filing such a case.OK, yes I did say enough is enough on this post, but after you deny above that there is a horrendous amount of frivolous litigation I can only say two things to you and then I will end my participation in this thread...those two things are...GET "REAL" FELLOW and GET A LIFE!
MichaelSol wrote: sgtbean1 wrote: eolafan wrote:You'll have to excuse us novices who look at such litigation with something of a jaundiced eye as we do so based on the extreme levels of unjustified litigation in this country in recent decades. You can't deny there's a level of truth to that either.Actually, I do deny that. Maybe I don't get out much, but the cases I see, even the headline makers, almost always have a sound basis for the jury award, although one of the key causes of high verdicts in some cases is simple corporate arrogance, brought into the courtroom by arrogant corporate counsel. And, the jury gets mad. The Ford Motor Co. Pinto case is a good example. The jury there heard the testimony that Ford's actuarial calculations on the Pinto gas tank design would "only" result in 8 deaths per year, and that Ford could fight off the resulting litigation far more cheaply than the cost of building the safer tank and supporting structure. It was the corporation's decision to choose litigation as the result of choosing a design they knew would result in deaths, rather than choosing an alternative to a safer design.They built the cost of knowingly killing people into the manufacturing cost and calculated rate of return on the Ford Pinto -- "the Barbeque that seats four".Then, "corporate counsel" argued to the jury that the company had every right to build a design that they knew would kill people: "the job of the corporation is to make money." It's expensive to handle these cases. Any lawyer handling one has to make an assessment as to the viability of the case -- a purely business judgment since in these cases, the clients don't have the money -- unlike the corporation -- to litigate, and so it is all on the lawyer's dime that the litigation is commenced. It is entirely a personal financial risk on the part the lawyer, and that adds a very clarifying element to assessing the risks of ever filing such a case.
sgtbean1 wrote: eolafan wrote:You'll have to excuse us novices who look at such litigation with something of a jaundiced eye as we do so based on the extreme levels of unjustified litigation in this country in recent decades. You can't deny there's a level of truth to that either.
eolafan wrote:You'll have to excuse us novices who look at such litigation with something of a jaundiced eye as we do so based on the extreme levels of unjustified litigation in this country in recent decades.
You can't deny there's a level of truth to that either.
Actually, I do deny that. Maybe I don't get out much, but the cases I see, even the headline makers, almost always have a sound basis for the jury award, although one of the key causes of high verdicts in some cases is simple corporate arrogance, brought into the courtroom by arrogant corporate counsel. And, the jury gets mad.
The Ford Motor Co. Pinto case is a good example. The jury there heard the testimony that Ford's actuarial calculations on the Pinto gas tank design would "only" result in 8 deaths per year, and that Ford could fight off the resulting litigation far more cheaply than the cost of building the safer tank and supporting structure. It was the corporation's decision to choose litigation as the result of choosing a design they knew would result in deaths, rather than choosing an alternative to a safer design.
They built the cost of knowingly killing people into the manufacturing cost and calculated rate of return on the Ford Pinto -- "the Barbeque that seats four".
Then, "corporate counsel" argued to the jury that the company had every right to build a design that they knew would kill people: "the job of the corporation is to make money."
It's expensive to handle these cases. Any lawyer handling one has to make an assessment as to the viability of the case -- a purely business judgment since in these cases, the clients don't have the money -- unlike the corporation -- to litigate, and so it is all on the lawyer's dime that the litigation is commenced. It is entirely a personal financial risk on the part the lawyer, and that adds a very clarifying element to assessing the risks of ever filing such a case.
OK, yes I did say enough is enough on this post, but after you deny above that there is a horrendous amount of frivolous litigation I can only say two things to you and then I will end my participation in this thread...those two things are...
GET "REAL" FELLOW and GET A LIFE!
What I am objecting to is your characterization that there is "an extreme level" of frivolous litigation and a "horrendous amount". Based on both experience and the assessment of the reality of the costs of litigation, I am disagreeing with your premise, because I suspect you are basing it on reading a few headlines, and are for some reason anxious to perpetuate a myth. There is always some nut somewhere that will file something, and those are the ones people read about, but they don't represent any measurable reality, and the terms "extreme" and "horrendous" simply misrepresents "real life".
Settle down and just listen to yourself. You're coming across pretty poorly by shouting. You've read probably innumerable stories about train derailments. Are you going off to other threads to lecture engineers about their "extreme" and "horrendous" accident rates? Based on your confident knowledge gained from reading the headlines about how to maintain railroads, run trains, and that you are just the guy to tell them how bad off their industry is in "real life"? Let me suggest that "get real" and "get a life" is advice well taken when you decide to lecture others on businesses, industries, and professions you do not, in fact, have experience in.
And I'm not trying to be my usual cranky self here, but as I have mentioned before, I appreciate an opinion backed up with facts, courteously presented, and you're not it right now. This thread is about litigation, and whether or not it is "unjustified". I am offering you a perspective on what this kind of litigation can actually mean, and what kind of financial considerations go into both sides of the issue from the standpoint of genuine experience on the matter. If you don't want to participate that's fine, but your attitude that you can lecture people about what you "know" about something that you actually "don't" can be left at the door.
Everybody was up dancing and having fun, and then the music stopped.
Metaphorically, wasn't that what happened? Were not all parties getting exactly what they needed/wanted out of the dance?
To me, if the jury buys that there was purposeful, and insidious, obfuscation, negligence, or willful and blatant disregard for known problems and laws and policies extant at the time these problems were germinating, the jury will certainly impose their outrage and fury on the defendants....and God help them. Of course there is emotion in the process....in the absence of emotion there would be little empathy, little care or interest in seeing to the matter.
Note that these are my opinions. It is the jury's that counts.
sgtbean1 wrote: MichaelSol wrote: ... I don't know what kind of "emotion" these posters worry about when corporate executives, pulling down milllions of dollars in pay and options, create a condition that they know will ultimately kill people, possibly hundreds -- their own hard-working employees and their families -- causing them to die horrible, painful deaths.Thank you for proving my point, however unintentionally. That's exactly the emotion I refer to. Just so you know: I'm not against you, or the people of Somerville. I'd like to know the facts. And I hope the jury will judge the case on those very facts.
MichaelSol wrote: ... I don't know what kind of "emotion" these posters worry about when corporate executives, pulling down milllions of dollars in pay and options, create a condition that they know will ultimately kill people, possibly hundreds -- their own hard-working employees and their families -- causing them to die horrible, painful deaths.
... I don't know what kind of "emotion" these posters worry about when corporate executives, pulling down milllions of dollars in pay and options, create a condition that they know will ultimately kill people, possibly hundreds -- their own hard-working employees and their families -- causing them to die horrible, painful deaths.
Thank you for proving my point, however unintentionally. That's exactly the emotion I refer to. Just so you know: I'm not against you, or the people of Somerville. I'd like to know the facts. And I hope the jury will judge the case on those very facts.
It doesn't seem to be the case or the facts that worry you, but whether or not the jury will use "emotion". As I say, when there is evidence of intentional disregard for health and safety that is, in some cases, found to be tantamount to murder, what is an "unemotional" response?
If an individual engages in pre-meditated behavior that he knows will kill you, the various levels of manslaughter and murder charges that can be brought require ultimate penalties up to and including life imprisonment and even the death penalty. Are those "emotional" responses? What should a jury award if the allegations are proven -- and judging by the depositions of company officials, admissions of record, there is little doubt on culpability here -- what are the appropriate measures of damages? A hundred bucks? What's a life worth?
Part of the economic thinking built into jury verdicts is, in fact, the concept of not just compensation, but punishment -- punitive damages; damages designed to punish and deter intentionally reckless behavior.
The reasoning is that, even after compensatory damages are assessed for causing pain, suffering and death, the original motivations may still represent a profit to a corporation -- exactly along the lines of Ford Motor Company's thinking. To protect society, how does a jury "punish"? You might call it emotion -- based solely on the size of the award, but the concept -- that such damages are supposed to be in excess of compensation --is, in fact, based on a recognized economic theory and need.
This tie plant didn't get retrofitted with appropriate pollution control equipment at the time that the risks became recognized. I don't know what the costs might have been in 1975 to retrofit a tie plant, but I know that similar pollution control equipment to remove dioxins and other toxic materials from both effluent and combustion gas release was on the order of $25 million or so under other industrial circumstances in the 1970s. That's a chunk of change and what leads me to suspect that there was an intentional decision made at a corporate level on this plant.
Using the "Ford Motor Company" method of risk calcuation, over a thirty year period, the investment cost savings of not making the pollution control investment, at 8% amounts to $503 million.
Well, that's the means by which a corporation assesses the value of human life that it knows it will be taking "unfairly." And certainly, it does lack the emotional content that you fear may guide human decisions. It is emotion-free. I don't agree that's a good way to always make decisions.
If a jury came back with a $100 million award, based on a finding of an intentional tort, the Company in essence is still ahead by a $400 million profit by the avoided expenditure of control and safety equipment over the time frame involved. They will write the check, kicking and screaming and complaining about greedy plaintiffs and unfair juries, and then laugh all the way to the bank as the plaintiffs, one by one, die off in horrible and slow and tragic circumstances which some seem to feel is only designed to appeal to emotion -- rather than representing exactly the suffering inflicted that is supposed to be compensated for by jury awards.
And death and suffering are emotional events for people. These aren't carrots. How do you instruct a jury to "not care" about a deformed baby who will never have a normal life because some jerk in charge of safety didn't want to spend the money to keep the creosote out of the air and water?
People only get one crack at living, and when some executive takes that opportunity away by making a decision to pad the corporate bottom line and increase his stock options by "saving" some money on pollution control equipment, what is a jury to do?
So, what would you consider an "unfair" award, driven by emotion, in a case such as this if the allegations are proven true? At $500 million, the company would break even -- the cost of litigation equals the savings/profit made from the decision. There is no incentive there to prevent the next cruel decision involving the arbitrary taking of human lives in the name of profit. Well, how about $600 million?
Enough? Not enough?
You might say that the jury award of $3 million per plaintiff is excessive. The jury may be looking at trying to prevent company behavior by removing the financial incentive to kill people -- through the use of punitive damages. You may read the paper and make a conclusion; the jury may have been looking at decision memos -- the ones that the company didn't get destroyed -- that showed a careful, if cruel, calculation.
Whose "right" -- you ... or the jury?
And what I am trying to point out here is that there is an accepted economic theory for imposing judgments far in excess of actual damages, and specific statutes that permit and define it and, in the broad scheme of things, it is necessary.
MichaelSol wrote: Krazykat112079 wrote: Based on the data you have produced, MichaelSol, they have suspected that something was amiss since the 70's. Would you not consider then that the town also bears partial responsibility for not addressing the issue 30+ years ago? Good grief.The railroad said that creosote was not dangerous. The plant manager received no warning from the company that there was a problem. The creosote was incinerated in an ordinary incinerator. It was dumped in the creek. Have you complained to a company lately about them poisoing the town?Did you keep your job?I can tell you exactly what happened to any whisteblower in the 1970s. They were fired.They left town.They died of cancer somewhere else; probbly couldn't even afford the medical care and the family went broke.And no one noticed.And I would just bet there are people here who say they deserved it for squealing on their employer. That's how some of you think.In any event, there appears to be a number of suffering people involved. The situation doesn't warrant the usual armchair judgments from afar.
Krazykat112079 wrote: Based on the data you have produced, MichaelSol, they have suspected that something was amiss since the 70's. Would you not consider then that the town also bears partial responsibility for not addressing the issue 30+ years ago?
Based on the data you have produced, MichaelSol, they have suspected that something was amiss since the 70's. Would you not consider then that the town also bears partial responsibility for not addressing the issue 30+ years ago?
Good grief.
The railroad said that creosote was not dangerous. The plant manager received no warning from the company that there was a problem. The creosote was incinerated in an ordinary incinerator. It was dumped in the creek.
Have you complained to a company lately about them poisoing the town?
Did you keep your job?
I can tell you exactly what happened to any whisteblower in the 1970s. They were fired.
They left town.
They died of cancer somewhere else; probbly couldn't even afford the medical care and the family went broke.
And no one noticed.
And I would just bet there are people here who say they deserved it for squealing on their employer. That's how some of you think.
In any event, there appears to be a number of suffering people involved. The situation doesn't warrant the usual armchair judgments from afar.
The Railroad increased its profits by not installing proper equipment, by not spending any money on training, not lifting a d*** finger to make that plant safe.As an earlier poster said, it's all about greed.
The Railroad increased its profits by not installing proper equipment, by not spending any money on training, not lifting a d*** finger to make that plant safe.
As an earlier poster said, it's all about greed.
Again, what happend to your statement about not judging from afar? Why is it ok for you to judge a company, but when someone else does in a manner that you do not like, they are horrible people. It is sad to see that this has turned into the typical Michael Sol thread, he is right and if you disagree with him then you are a moron.
I believe everyone has mixed up I'm suing mcdonalds because I'm fat with people who where knowingly put into harms way. The corporation doesnt care if you die, the corporation doesnt care if your kids have disabilties, the corporation cares about how much money can we make. Michealsol talks from experience, and a lot of his own investigation to come to his conclusions. Maybe the rest of us, should take the time to research our conclusions, or just maybe you should really think about what you want to say.
Remember the corporation not only has lawyers but also has a PR firm representing them, do you think that maybe the fake data, or skewed data is a result of the PR firm changing how you look at a case before you even know about the case.
Our community is FREE to join. To participate you must either login or register for an account.