Navy Sailors File Revised Class Action Against Tokyo Electric Power Co., General Electric Over Fukushima Radiation Exposure

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Tokyo Electric Power Company, Inc. (TEPCO) and General Electric Company are the defendants in a proposed class action lawsuit filed by a group of United States servicemen and women who claim they were exposed to significant amounts of radiation while stationed aboard the USS Ronald Reagan as a result of “gross negligence” that led to the March 2011 meltdown of the reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. The 139-page complaint is the revised version of an August 2017 class action suit that was dismissed without prejudice in January by a federal judge in San Diego, who ruled the case should not be heard in California and that the plaintiffs failed to establish how TEPCO’s conduct was directed at American sailors.

The plaintiffs, primarily U.S. Navy personnel, say they were exposed to radioisotopes from the Fukushima plant during “Operation Tomodachi,” for which they were sent to Japan to provide aid to those impacted by the March 2011 tsunami and 9.0 magnitude earthquake that preceded the Fukushima Daiichi meltdown.

“[The plaintiffs], most of whom were aboard nearby ships, were trapped in the prevailing wind blowing out to sea, carrying the deadly plume of all these radioactive particles,” the complaint reads, noting the water used by onboard personnel was contaminated. “They were unable to avoid the radiation.”

According to the case, the defendants’ “longstanding negligence” led to the General Electric-designed boiling water reactors at the Fukushima plant to melt down and release heavy amounts of radiation into the surrounding areas. Among the defendants’ supposed failures, the lawsuit alleges TEPCO and GE:

• Failed to design the nuclear plant with strong enough “Defense in Depth” to withstand severe catastrophes (such as a tsunami or earthquake);
• Used a “cheap design” for the failed reactor’s uranium core containment structure;
• Ignored years of warnings and covered up or tampered with data from onsite inspections that revealed “problems with the fractured, deteriorating, poorly repaired pipes and cooling system” at the plant;
• Failed to provide appropriate power sources, including adequate backup power, to cool the plant’s reactor; and
• Failed to install power-free filters on vent lines that would allow for the removal of radioactive materials and prevent harm to nearby residents and relief workers.

The lawsuit goes so far as to allege the Fukushima meltdown is “the worst industrial accident in the history of the world,” and would have been largely preventable if not for the precedence of “corporation financial goals and engineering hubris.”

The plaintiffs claim that as a result of numerous alleged design and manufacturing defects within the failed reactors, they’ve experienced a wide range of serious health issues generally uncommon among the younger population. These issues were realized only somewhat recently, the complaint says, long after members of the proposed class returned home from the humanitarian aid mission. With these ailments come burdensome, long-term medical costs, which can include monitoring for genetic mutations. From the lawsuit:

“These harms include, but are not limited to, the following: illnesses such as Leukemia, ulcers, gall bladder removals, brain cancer, brain tumors, testicular cancer, dysfunctional uterine bleeding, thyroid illnesses, stomach ailments, birth defects, death, and a host of other complaints unusual in such young adults and victims. The injured servicemen and women will require treatment for their deteriorating health, medical monitoring, payment of their medical bills, appropriate health monitoring for their children, and monitoring for possible radiation-induced genetic mutations. Some of the radioactive particles inside these service personnel have long half-lives, from 6 to 50 to 100 years.”

The proposed class the lawsuit seeks to represent could cover more than 70,000 members of the armed forces and their dependents, along with support personnel who served during Operation Tomodachi.

In October 2017, a district court in Fukushima ruled that the Japanese government and TEPCO were in fact negligent and ordered the defendants to pay around $4.4 million in damages to be split amount nearly 3,000 people.

The full complaint can be read below.