MISSOULA, Montana – A federal judge has given W.R. Grace & Company more time to file an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. Justice Anthony Kennedy granted an extension allowing Grace lawyers until April 14 to file an appeal to disallow certain evidence at their trial.

The company faces criminal charges along with seven of its former managers in a case that was originally brought in 2005. Grace operated the Libby vermiculite mine that closed in 1990, and is facing billions in lawsuits brought by former workers and consumers of products made with vermiculite from that mine. The indictment charges that the company knew that the vermiculite produced by the Libby mine was contaminated with asbestos, and conspired to hide the health risks of their product in order to make more profit.

The Libby mine has made Grace notorious. The vermiculite extracted at the Libby mine site was used in many different products, including one of the company’s most popular and best selling products ever – a loose attic insulation brand-named Zonolite. According to the company’s own records, Zonolite may be in as many as 30 million homes across the United States, and a recent case in Canada pointed out that the product was also sold and used there, and has been associated with high incidences of mesothelioma and asbestosis among those exposed to it.

The people of Libby and the surrounding area may be the ones most closely victimized by the alleged actions of the defendants. In the 18 years since the mine was closed, there have been over 1,200 reported cases of asbestos-related diseases there, a rate many times higher than would be expected in such a small area. In addition, the town lives daily with the cleanup efforts, which still continue. Grace has been ordered to pay a large share of the cleanup costs for the contamination from the asbestos-tainted mine.

Grace had sought to block certain documents from being used against them in the pending court case. Those documents are central to the government’s contention that company officials were aware of the dangers of asbestos and of the contamination of their product with asbestos. Proving that the awareness existed is key to the government’s case in criminal court. Without the documents in evidence, the criminal case against Grace can’t stand.

A judge had originally supported Grace’s motion to exclude the incriminating documents, but the decision was later reversed upon appeal by the U.S. court.  Grace originally had until March 3 to file an appeal, but the ruling Tuesday grants them another five weeks to prepare their argument.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 11th, 2008 at 9:23 am and is filed under Asbestos Litigation, Montana. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS feed. Responses are currently closed, but you trackback from your own site.