TEPCO Asks Judge to Dismiss Fukushima Radiation Exposure Class Action

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A group of members of the military who responded to the recent Japanese nuclear reactor meltdown are facing an uphill battle after the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) filed a motion arguing for the dismissal of the Fukushima radiation exposure class action lawsuit.

The plaintiffs seek to represent a Class of military members, their families and support personnel who were involved in the cleanups after the tsunami destroyed the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactor and the surrounding countryside, a group that would number in the tens of thousands of dollars. Had they been aware of the risks, they say they might have acted differently.

TEPCO is accused of negligence because of knowledge that these Americans “would be exposed to hazardous levels of radiation, yet did not communicate this to the ships and to other responders,” the class action lawyers wrote in the class action lawsuit. The company argues that there is a very real problem: no one asked them to show up specifically.

Specifically, the potential for a flawed design of the Fukushima Daiichi reactor or the lack of enough protections to prevent needless radiation exposure is irrelevant, TEPCO says. It did not order the members of the military to the site, their superior officers did. Since the commanders are not named defendants, there is a significant link in the chain of causation that needs to be attributed some level of responsibility, according to the motion opposing the plaintiffs’ request to file an amended class action lawsuit.

Instead, the company says that the problem of the “political question doctrine” remains, specifically whether or not the U.S. District Court system is the proper venue. After several attempts, the class action lawsuit still fails, the defense team writes, because “plaintiffs cannot establish that TEPCO actually or proximately caused their injuries” and make their claims “without delving into the ‘factual basis and rationale’ for purely discretionary judgments made by military commanders.”

Even when adding more defendants including design and construction of the nuclear power plant, there is still not a strong enough causal link between the company’s activities and the radiation exposure suffered by these plaintiffs after the tsunami, the motion concludes.

The plaintiffs are represented by class action lawyers Charles A. Bonner and A. Cabral Bonner of the Law Offices of Bonner & Bonner and Paul C. Gardner.

The Fukushima Radiation Exposure Class Action Lawsuit is Cooper, et al. v. Tokyo Electric Power Co. Inc., Case No. 12-cv-03032, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California.