Federal Jury Awards $7.5 Million to Estate of Popcorn Plant Flavor Mixer With Diacetyl Lung Disease

Ronald Kuiper started work in 1986 at American Pop Corn Company, a microwave popcorn plant in Sioux City, Iowa, where he later worked as a butter flavor mixer. In 1995, after he developed breathing problems, the company moved him out of the mixing room. He was eventually diagnosed with bronchiolitis obliterans, a scarring of the smallest airways of the lungs that became widely known as popcorn lung. The disease has been tied to diacetyl, a chemical in butter flavorings that federal health investigators have identified as harmful to the lungs.

On January 30, 2006, Kuiper and his wife, Conley, sued Givaudan Flavors Corp. of Cincinnati in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Iowa. The complaint named three other flavoring suppliers as well, and those claims were resolved before trial. The plaintiffs pleaded negligence and a combined claim for loss of consortium and medical expenses. The court dismissed their fraudulent concealment and civil conspiracy counts, so the case went forward on the failure to warn. American Pop Corn, Kuiper's employer, was never a defendant.

Kenneth McClain, Steven Crick and J'Nan Kimak of Humphrey, Farrington & McClain were listed as plaintiffs' counsel in the pretrial opinion by Judge Mark W. Bennett, alongside Sioux City lawyer Dennis McElwain. Before trial the judge ruled on a long series of motions in limine, among them a bid by Givaudan to exclude evidence about other cases and about lung transplantation, and one by the Kuipers to keep out testimony about the condition of their home.

Trial ran 11 days. McClain argued, and told Missouri Lawyers Weekly afterward, that Givaudan knew early on that its flavorings might be causing lung disease. He pointed to internal company memos showing that officials had narrowed the possible cause to three chemicals and worried about what OSHA rules would then require them to tell customers about warnings. He also said the company had dismissed a doctor who recommended a study in 1993. The jury, which included a lawyer as foreman, deliberated six days.

Kuiper, 69, died of lung and heart failure on March 11, 2009, the day before the verdict. On March 12 the jury found against Givaudan on the failure to warn and awarded about $7.5 million: about $6 million on Ronald Kuiper's claims and $1.5 million to Conley Kuiper. Minnesota Lawyer later called it the Independence, Missouri firm's most recent victory in its popcorn plant litigation.