The Nation - News from Aug. 21, 1985

Twenty-two residents of West Virginia’s “Chemical Valley” filed a $24.2-million suit in Charleston against Union Carbide, charging the company with negligence in the pesticide leak at its Institute plant Aug. 11 that sickened 134 persons. Each of the plaintiffs who filed the suit in Kanawha Circuit Court is seeking $100,000 in compensatory damages and $1 million in punitive damages. The suit said company officials “should have known that their failure to properly control, contain and store chemicals and gases . . . would result in damage to persons and property.”