Napoli Shkolnik Files Class Action Lawsuit Related to Toxic Air Emissions from Medical Sterilization Plant in Memphis, Tennessee

Napoli Shkolnik, along with Local Counsel Wampler, Carrol, Wilson & Sanderson, PLLC, filed a Class Action lawsuit in the Shelby County, Tennessee State Court on Wednesday August 2, 2023, seeking compensation for injuries suffered by the South Memphis community due to exposure to the toxic emissions from local medical sterilization facility.

Since 1979, Sterilization Services of Tennessee—located in a dense residential area of south Memphis—has been emitting dangerous amount of Ethylene Oxide into the air. Ethylene Oxide has been a known human carcinogen for decades. As a result, the immediately surrounding community has been and continued to be at an increased risk of developing certain cancers (including breast cancer, lymphoma, stomach cancer, and leukemia), experiencing serious fertility issues and birth injuries, and other devastating health problems.

Late last year, the EPA began to publish information to impacted communities—including Memphis—about the most unsafe facilities using Ethylene Oxide. Sterilization Services of Tennessee is one of roughly two dozen to have been red flagged as the most dangerous in the United States, with current exposure levels twenty times the EPA’s maximum acceptable risk level. Even more alarmingly, these emissions were approximately 100 times higher during periods of the 1980s and continue to be a devastating public health burden on the community today.

Paul Napoli remarked “Defendants’ use and emission of Ethylene Oxide creates an unreasonably high degree of risk to those who live, pray, and work and the surrounding area. We are taking action on behalf of the impacted South Memphis community to recover for the decades of damage inflicted on the men, women, and children breathing in these toxic emissions from the Defendants’ facility.”

ABOUT NAPOLI SHKOLNIK:

Napoli Shkolnik is a national litigation firm providing representation to persons in class action lawsuits and complex commercial cases, as well as victims of environmental contamination disasters, aviation accidents, defective prescriptions drugs and medical devices, asbestos-related illnesses, and other serious personal injury matters.

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