(New York) American oil and gas giant ExxonMobil was ordered by a Pennsylvania jury to pay $725 million in compensation to a former employee suffering from a rare form of leukemia, according to a court document released Friday .
“Jury verdict in favor of the plaintiffs and against the defendant, ExxonMobil, in the amount of $725.5 million,” states the Pennsylvania courts website succinctly, specifying that $725 million had been awarded to Paul Gill and 500,000 dollars to his wife Diane.
The oil group indicated, in a statement sent to AFP, that it intended to “exhaust all available appeals”.
“This is an irrational verdict that we will ask the court to overturn before it is finalized,” responded ExxonMobil, saying it was “confident” of winning its appeal.
Paul Gill, 67, suffers from acute myeloid leukemia (AML) diagnosed in 2019. It is a rare cancer of the blood and bone marrow.
He claims it was caused by daily cleaning of vehicle parts with his bare hands and with oil and solvents when he worked as a mechanic at a Mobil gas station in Philadelphia between 1975 and 1980, according to a statement from the firm Waters, Kraus, Paul and Siegel, one of the two firms that represented the Gill couple.
They launched proceedings in 2020 against ExxonMobil – born from the merger of Exxon and Mobil in November 1999 –, accused of not having warned the mechanic “of the known risks” of cancer linked to the inhalation and handling of the benzene contained in petroleum products, continued the cabinet.
“ExxonMobil knew for decades that benzene caused cancer, yet they did not warn the public, nor take the most basic precautions to protect it,” noted Patrick Wigle, one of the lawyers of this firm, quoted in the press release.
At the end of a day of deliberations following a week-long trial, ten jurors out of twelve ruled in favor of the plaintiffs on Thursday. The decision was made public on Friday.