Jasper County Jury Awards $20 Million to Popcorn Plant Worker With Butter-Flavoring Lung Disease

Eric Peoples, of Carthage, Missouri, went to work at the Gilster-Mary Lee microwave popcorn plant in Jasper, Missouri, where his job included mixing butter flavoring oils for the product line. About a year after he started, he began having what he and his doctors first took for the flu: achiness, shortness of breath and tightness in the chest. The symptoms did not clear up.

Peoples was later diagnosed with bronchiolitis obliterans, the scarring of the smallest airways that became widely known as popcorn lung. Government investigators had linked diacetyl, a chemical in butter flavoring, to illness among workers at the plant in 2001. Doctors testified at trial that Peoples's lungs were permanently damaged and that he would eventually need a double lung transplant.

Peoples and his wife, Cassandra, sued International Flavors and Fragrances Inc. and its subsidiary Bush Boake Allen Inc., the companies that made the flavoring. Their claim was that the manufacturers knew the product was hazardous but failed to warn workers of the danger or provide adequate safety instructions. Ken McClain represented the couple. Peoples was the first of roughly 30 former workers from the plant to have a case heard against the two flavoring makers, so the outcome was watched closely by everyone with a claim waiting behind his.

The companies defended the product as safe when handled properly. Their lawyer, Mike Patton, told reporters the warnings instructed workers to mix the flavoring in well-ventilated areas and to wear respirators when heating it, and that basic hygiene practices prevent problems. The plant had added ventilation and required respirators after the 2001 findings, and the defense pointed out that no new illness reports followed.

The case was tried in Jasper County in March 2004, with the courthouse in Joplin. After deliberating a little more than three hours, the jury returned a verdict for the plaintiffs against both companies. It awarded Eric Peoples $18 million for his injuries and Cassandra Peoples $2 million, for a total of $20 million.

McClain said at the time that his next Jasper County trial for another worker from the plant was set for April 20, 2004. The flavoring makers appealed this verdict and the others that followed it. In January 2006 the Peoples case became the first of those appeals to be resolved, when the couple settled with the companies out of court on confidential terms. Reporting years later said it was never clear how much of the money the couple received, because attorneys said an unstated portion was meant for other workers hurt at the same plant.