Both sides can claim significant victories in yesterday’s long-awaited federal appeals court ruling in personal injury suits brought by 2,000 Pennsylvania residents who claim they were exposed to radiation in the March 1979 nuclear reactor accident at Three Mile Island.
The three-judge panel ruled that the trial judge, Middle District of Pennsylvania Chief Judge Sylvia H. Rambo, properly tossed out the claims of the first 10 plaintiffs whose cases were set to be tried as a test case when she found that their expert witnesses could not establish a key fact — that the TMI accident had caused the plaintiffs to be exposed to significant levels of radiation.
