Star Staff Writer
Attorneys who filed a new PCBs lawsuit against Monsanto and Solutia Friday have been flooded with phone calls from people who want in on the case.
By early Tuesday afternoon, one lawyer, Earl Underwood, had fielded “probably a couple hundred calls, I would say.”
Underwood, who is based in Fairhope, said he was taken aback by the response.
“There are a lot of unserved people out there,” he said.
Underwood and the other main attorney in the case, Birmingham-based Annesley DeGaris, had clients in the $600 million settlement announced in August.
“We were just telling people [who called afterwards] it was too late, but we were getting such a volume of calls,” Underwood said. “We saw a need for a new case.”
The lawsuit accuses the companies of polluting people’s bodies and properties with PCBs, knowing the chemicals were harmful. It also accuses them of lead and mercury pollution.
From the 1930s to the 1970s, Monsanto made polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, at its plant in western Anniston. The chemicals contaminate local waterways and properties, and have been found in some residents’ blood.
Solutia, a spinoff company, now owns the plant. The Environmental Protection Agency is overseeing a cleanup and widespread study of the contamination.
Underwood’s firm has a Web site at www.alalaw.com.