Ex-Comcast Worker Amends Lead Cables Suit vs. Verizon to Allege ‘Economic Injury'

Greg Bostard, the former Comcast utility pole worker who wants Verizon to pay for his medical monitoring due to his 29 years of exposure to Verizon’s toxic lead cables (see 2308240005), amended his class action Friday to assert that he’s not seeking personal injury damages but rather relief for the “present economic injury” he suffers by having to pay for his own lead-poisoning tests.

Verizon’s Nov. 13 motion to dismiss Bostard’s original complaint said that despite his lengthy career, Bostard doesn’t claim “that lead was ever detected in his body, at an elevated level or otherwise,” and that he therefore he can’t allege “the elements necessary to plead Article III standing” (see 2311140006). Bostard’s amended complaint (docket 1:23-cv-08564) in U.S. District Court for New Jersey in Newark said he and his class members expressly preserve their rights to pursue personal injury claims “in other litigation.”

Due to his “direct and regular exposure” to Verizon's lead cables, Bostard now requires medical surveillance for lead, said the amended complaint. The medical monitoring he seeks includes blood and bone testing to measure “the amount of lead that is still in his body,” plus any additional “medical surveillance and treatment recommended by healthcare professionals,” it said.

Bostard “has thus suffered a present economic injury in the form of the cost of the medical care made necessary” by Verizon’s “negligent actions,” said the amended complaint. The wording of the original complaint said that due to his direct and regular exposure to Verizon's lead cables, Bostard “suffered a present injury that creates and/or increases the risk that he will develop the catastrophic health effects” of lead exposure.

Verizon has “statutory and regulatory duties” under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA), said the amended complaint. Lead is a hazardous substance within the meaning of the CERCLA, it said. The many releases of lead from the cables “suffice” to subject Verizon to “cleanup liability” under the CERCLA, it said. The original complaint made no mention of that 1980 statute.

When Verizon’s predecessors laid the cables well before the breakup of the Bell system, “they were aware of these cables' dangerous propensity to leach lead,” said the amended complaint. It cited a 1929 internal Bell Labs memorandum that explained that when lead is exposed to the atmosphere, it “tarnishes and becomes inert owing to the formation of an oxide film” that increases in thickness during a period of about 10 days, it said.

In the presence of moisture and carbon dioxide, lead becomes coated with a film of lead carbonate, said the 1929 memorandum. That “tarnish,” which can have the appearance of a fine dust, creates an “obvious danger to both those who handle cables and to the surrounding environment,” it said.

Those dangers “are enhanced by rain,” said the 1929 memorandum. Rain can wash away the tarnish or dust, in turn contaminating nearby soil, plus it may deposit acids that may speed the process of corrosion, it said. That deposition of acids is dangerous because lead “is particularly susceptible to corrosion when exposed to carboxylic and nitric acids,” it said. Both carboxylic and nitric acids “are commonly transported by rainwater, and are primary causes of acid rain,” it said. Mention of the 1929 memorandum, and the level of detail contained in it, were missing from the original complaint.