Flint water civil case goes to jurors, after acrimony erupts during closing arguments
After a civil trial that lasted nearly five months, jurors began deliberating Thursday whether two consulting firms committed professional negligence in connection with the lead poisoning of Flint's drinking water.
U.S. District Judge Judith Levy sent the case to the jury of three men and five women, but not before acrimony erupted in her Ann Arbor courtroom during the second and final day of closing arguments.
Four plaintiffs who were children when the lead poisoning began in 2014 are suing two sets of companies that were hired by Flint for their water expertise before or during the Flint water crisis. Those defendants are Lockwood, Andrews & Newnam (LAN) and its parent company, Leo A. Daly Co., and a second company, Veolia Water North America Operating Services.
The plaintiffs allege both companies knew the water was not safe to drink but they either said nothing or falsely told city residents the water was safe. The companies say the tragedy was the result of bad decisions and mistakes made by state and local politicians and bureaucrats — not them.
Wayne Brian Mason, the Dallas attorney representing LAN, delivered a closing argument Thursday that outraged New York City attorney Corey Stern, who represents the plaintiffs. Levy said Mason appeared to violate court rules related to civility by criticizing Stern and his co-counsel, Moshe Maimon, also of New York.
Mason referred to the plaintiffs' lawyers as "tricksters," said their case amounted to "fluff and puff, mirrors and magic wands," and that they participated in an "orchestrated scam" with an expert witness who Mason described as a "reliable mouthpiece who has worked for these lawyers in many other cases." He also said — inaccurately, Levy noted when she admonished him — that the plaintiffs "took a run" at suing LAN after earlier suing a number of other defendants and described the plaintiffs' attorneys as giving one another "high fives" over the lawsuit.
More: Firms knew of lead contamination in Flint and failed to act, lawyers argue in civil trial
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Stern called on Levy to issue corrective instructions to jurors and to strike from the record every reference Mason made to opposing lawyers in the case.
"In 20 years I have never ... had an opposing counsel stand up at a lectern ... and so personally attack the lawyers," Stern told Levy, outside the presence of the jurors, after Mason completed his nearly two-hour closing argument.
"With just reckless abandon to make this case about the lawyers ... violates so many canons of ethics."
Mason told the judge he did not believe he said anything improper and Levy did not go as far as Stern requested in making a corrective instruction to the jurors.
She told them that they should disregard any personal accusations Mason made about Stern and Maimon, as well as anything Mason said about their motives for suing LAN. She also reminded them that lawyers' arguments are not evidence.
Stern responded to a couple of the comments in his rebuttal presentation to jurors.
"Lawyers who represent brain-damaged kids don't high-five each other when they win," Stern told jurors.
Mason told jurors that the principal LAN official who performed work in connection with the Flint Water Treatment Plant, Warren Green, believed that there would be a 60- to 90-day test run of the water plant before it started distributing drinking water from the Flint River to city residents. Green was never informed ahead of time that state and local officials decided to put the plant online without performing the test run, Mason said.
In his rebuttal argument, Stern said Green's reported insistence on the test run was never put in writing. But if Green made the recommendation, he had to have known the test run was never performed, Stern said.
On Wednesday, VNA attorney Daniel Stein of New York City delivered his closing argument for that defendant.
The trial began with 10 jurors, but two dropped out before the case was finished.
The trial is known as a "bellwether trial" because its outcome could significantly affect how the claims of other plaintiffs against the companies will be resolved.
Levy has already approved a $626.25-million partial settlement, for tens of thousands of Flint plaintiffs, for claims against the state, the city, McLaren Hospitals, and Rowe Professional Services Co., which did engineering work for the city. LAN and Veolia were not part of that historic settlement.
Contact Paul Egan: 517-372-8660 or pegan@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @paulegan4. Read more on Michigan politics and sign up for our elections newsletter.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Flint water case goes to jurors after five-month trial
