Sterigenics Verdict: $363 Million for a Willowbrook Cancer Survivor

Sterigenics operated a medical sterilization plant in Willowbrook, Illinois, from 1985 until state regulators forced it to stop in 2019. To kill bacteria on medical equipment, the facility used ethylene oxide, a gas the U.S. EPA classifies as a human carcinogen. Federal researchers later found that people living near the plant developed cancer at rates well above the national average.

Sue Kamuda lived within a quarter mile of the Willowbrook facility for about 40 years. She was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2007. In 2018 she sued Sterigenics, its parent company Sotera Health, and corporate predecessor Griffith Foods, arguing that decades of ethylene oxide drifting from the plant caused her illness. Her son, who grew up in the same neighborhood and was later diagnosed with lymphoma, filed his own separate case.

The trial in Cook County Circuit Court ran about five weeks. Patrick Salvi II, Lance Northcutt, and Jennifer Cascio of Salvi, Schostok & Pritchard represented Kamuda alongside lawyers from The Collins Law Firm and Miner, Barnhill & Galland. They walked the jury through the plant's emissions records and the company's own knowledge of the gas's dangers, tying the long exposure to her diagnosis.

After roughly one day of deliberation, the jury returned a verdict of $363 million on September 19, 2022. It split into $38 million in compensatory damages and $325 million in punitive damages, with most of the punitive award assigned to Sterigenics and Sotera Health. The figure was the largest a jury had ever awarded an individual plaintiff in Illinois. Kamuda's case was the first of roughly 800 similar lawsuits to reach trial.

"When you hear that guilty verdict in the end, it's worth it," Kamuda said afterward. Salvi told reporters, "This ought to set the tone. There are a lot of victims out there. And we're ready to do this again and again if we have to."

Sterigenics disputed the result and said it would appeal. The trial judge denied the company's post-trial motions, leaving the $363 million figure intact rather than reduced. In January 2023, Sterigenics and Sotera Health agreed to pay $408 million to resolve more than 870 ethylene oxide cases tied to the Willowbrook plant, a deal the companies said was not an admission of liability.