DuPont Co. saw its exposure to liability seem to grow in the wake of a bellwether mass tort case, as it faces a sea of lawsuits related to its dumping of chemically tainted water into the Ohio River, after a federal jury in Ohio this week awarded $5.1 million in compensatory damages to a man who developed cancer.
On Wednesday, a seven-member jury found the Wilmington, Delaware-based chemical company acted with malice when it discharged the chemical C8 into the river, near its Washington Works plant in West Virginia. The same jury on Friday ordered DuPont to pay an additional $500,000 in punitive damages to the plaintiff, David Freeman.
