/ciol/media/agency_attachments/c0E28gS06GM3VmrXNw5G.png)
Follow UsRichard Baum
LONDON: Mobile phone companies are facing fresh legal action from brain tumor
victims in the United States, a newspaper reported on Thursday.
Britain's Times newspaper said Peter Angelos, a US lawyer who recently helped
win $4.2 billion in damages from the tobacco industry, was planning to launch 10
claims against handset manufacturers, mobile network operators and fixed-line
phone companies.
Verizon Wireless, the largest US mobile operator, will be named in nearly all
of the actions, the newspaper said.
The news comes amid continued concern among some mobile phone users that
radiation from handsets could cause brain tumors, despite the fact that research
has failed to find any link.
Britain's Vodafone Group Plc., which owns 45 per cent of Verizon, said a UK
government-sponsored research published this year gave mobile phones a clean
bill of health.
Company spokesman Mike Caldwell said he did not know of any legal cases that
named Vodafone directly, but it would defend itself very vigorously if
necessary.
"The mobile phone industry is not the tobacco industry," he told
BBC Radio.
A Maryland neurologist filed a $800 million lawsuit against handset maker
Motorola Inc. in August as well as eight other telecommunications companies and
organizations, claiming that his use of cell phones caused a malignant brain
tumor.
Expert witness needed
But there is no irrefutable medical evidence that mobile phones cause brain
tumors or other medical problems.
John Trotter, a partner specializing in product liability at London law firm
Lovells, said such cases needed an expert willing to say there was a possibility
of a link.
The US lawyers would also be hoping that a court would grant them access to
mobile companies' documents.
"They may be hoping that discovery of documents would turn up something
showing there was some sort of knowledge (of possible harm) among the product
manufacturers," Trotter said.
A US study published this month concluded there did not appear to be any
link, though it said more research was needed into the impact of long-term use
of mobiles.
The study by the American Health Foundation was funded in part by a research
group established by the cellular telephone industry, which put more than $28
million into a blind escrow account for the group to finance research.
Angelos, who fought the tobacco industry in Maryland, plans to launch two
claims against the mobile companies before March, and the remaining seven or
eight within a year, The Times said. They will be launched initially in
California, Kentucky and Maryland.
"If these companies knew about the dangers of cell phone radiation, they
should be punished. And, they should be punished dearly: not only for what they
did to the public, but for the billions of pounds of profits they made,"
John A. Pica, an attorney at Angelos's law firm, told The Times.
The report hit Vodafone shares, which were 1.8 per cent weaker at 233.25
pence at 1200 GMT.
Christian Maher, telecoms analyst at Investec Henderson Crosthwaite
Securities, doubted the story would hurt the sector much. "Drawing
parallels with the tobacco industry is a bit far fetched," he said.
(C) Reuters Limited 2000.