Subject: `AIDS-Like' Chemical Features in Court Case
Date: Published: 2/6/92 (44 lines)
Source: Wall Street Journal. Copyright Dow Jones & Co. Inc.

    Legal Morass:
    Hundreds of Businesses
    Wait and Run Up Bills
    As Tort Case Drags On
    ---
    A Lawyer Ties Them Vaguely
    To Steel-Plant Toxicity;
    Injuries Are Vague, Too
    ---
    'Blackmail,' the Defense Says
    ----
    By Christi Harlan
    Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal

[43 lines irrelevant to AIDS removed.  -- sysop]

    The lawsuits, the first of which was filed on May 15,
 1987, allege that chemicals at the Lone Star plant combined
 to create a toxic cloud that infected workers with "chemical
 AIDS."  "This toxic smog," one suit contends, "crept in ever
 so quietly like little cats' feet and did permanent damage to
 the bodies of the unsuspecting workers."  Damages aren't
 specified in the suits, but Mr. Nix pegs the total potential
 recovery at "hundreds of millions of dollars."  Mr. Nix didn't
 sue Lone Star Steel, but other defendants have moved to drag
 it into the case.

[173 lines irrelevant to AIDS removed.  -- sysop]

    But Mr. Nix and his associates resist the testing
 suggestion.  Under their "chemical AIDS" theory, some workers'
 illnesses won't show up for years, they contend.  "They
 deserve medical monitoring," argued Nelson Roach, one of Mr. 
 Nix's associates, at a recent court hearing on the
 defendants' request for medical tests.  Such monitoring is
 sometimes provided for in settlements of toxic-injury cases.

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