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{
    "localId": "75728910",
    "label": "Copies of Court Documents, July 10, 1935",
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    "id": "75728910",
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    "contentType": "document",
    "title": "Copies of Court Documents, July 10, 1935",
    "citationUrl": "https://catalog.archives.gov/id/75728910",
    "collections": [
        "Safety Light Collection",
        "Records Related to Radium Dial Painters"
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{
    "seq": 7,
    "pageIndex": 0,
    "type": "document",
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    "ocrText": "UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT\nDISTRICT OF NEW JERSEY\nANITA J. BURRICELLI,\n:\nPlaintiff,\n00\n-VS-\n:\nACTION AT LAW\nUNITED STATES RADIUM\n:\nCOMPLAINT\nCORPORATION, a corpora-\ntion of the State of\n:\nDelaware,\n:\nDefendant,\n:\nThe plaintiff, ANITA J. BURRICELLI, residing at 34 Tompkins\nStreet, in the municipality of West Orange, Essex County, says that:-\n-FIRST COUNT--\n1. The plaintiff is a resident and citizen of the State\nof New Jersey.\n2. The defendant is a corporation of the State of Delaware.\n3. The amount in controversy herein exceeds the sum of\n$3,000.00, exclusive of interest and costs.\n4. Prior to, during, and for many years after 1917 the\ndefendant was engaged in the manufacture and sale of various commodities\nrendered luminous by the application of radioactive substances, particularly\nthe dials and hands of watches and clocks.\n5. The defendant maintained a plant at Orange, New Jersey,\nwhere substances containing radioactive materials were prepared and applied\nto the commodities hereinabove mentioned, the radioactive materials used\nbeing radium, mesothorium and thorium-x.\n6. Each of these last mentioned materials whether used\nalone or in any combination, is inherently potent and inherently highly\ndangerous and injurious to human health and human tissues when brought into\nclose proximity with the human body or when introduced therein, and was in\nfact highly dangerous and injurious as used by the defendants in the quantities\nemployed in carrying on the operations hereinabove mentioned.\n7. The defendant employed the plaintiff in the years 1917\nto 1922 inclusive, in the ordinary course of its business, to work at the\npreparation of a substance containing some or all of the radioactive materials\nabove mentioned, and in the actual application thereof to the dials and hands\nof watches and clocks and other objects at the plant maintained by the\ndefendant in Orange, New Jersey.\n8. The defendant negligently and carelessly, and despite\nits knowlege, actual and constructive, as to the dangerous and injurious\nnature of these radioactive materials to human tissue, so conducted its\nbusiness and so caused the plaintiff to carry on her work, as to cause her\nto ingest and inhale large quantities of solid and gaseous radioactive sub-\nstances contained in and given off from the material with which she worked,\nand likewise omitted and failed to supply her with reasonable, adequate\nand safe tools, appliances, methods and working conditions for carrying on\nher work, and on the contrary caused her to prosecute the same with unsafe,\ndangerous and inadequate tools, appliances, methods and working conditions,\nand likewise omitted and failed to warn her or apprise her of unusual risks\nattending her employment known to it, and to its knowledge not patent and\nobservable to, and of which, the plaintiff was wholly ignorant, and likewise\nomitted and failed to warn her or apprise her of the dangerous nature of the\nradioactive materials with which she was working, and of which she was wholly\nignorant, and otherwise negligently and carelessly used and employed the\nradioactive materials above mentioned in and about its place of business.\n9. As the proximate result of the negligence and care-\nlessness of the acts and omissions of the defendant stated in the preceding\nparagraph, radioactive materials were thus ingested and inhaled into the body\nof the plaintiff and became in part, lodged and fixed in various organs and\ntissues.\n10. The nature of the several substances fixed and deposited\nin the body of the plaintiff is such that they continue to remain potent and\nactive for many years and produce by their inherent natural properties de-\nstructive effects upon human bones, tissues and other portions of the body\nof which properties and actions the defendant was, in 1917, 105.18 with\nknowledge.\n11. The fact of the injurious action and effect of radio-\nactive substances fixed in the body of the plaintiff, was first learned by\nher in or about the early part of 1935. The radioactive substances so fixed\nand deposited in the plaintiff's body, were deposited principally in her\nbones. The action of the radioactive substances so fixed and deposited in\nthe plaintiff's body, was such as to produce an inflamation of her bones\ncommonly known as radiation ostietis. The conditions and effects hereinabove\nmentioned produced very painful consequences and necessitated numerous opera-\ntions upon various parts of the plaintiff's body, and the removal of various\nparts thereof. In addition to the effects hereinabove specified, other re-\nsults of the action of the radio-active substances deposited in her body have\ncaused damage and pain to the plaintiff.\n12. The radioactive substances deposited and fixed in the\nplaintiff's body are permanently implanted and fixed there with no way known\nto medical science to remove them and they will continuously act injuriously\nupon the plaintiff's body and will cause her pain and lesions of various kinds\nand are likely to produce malignancy, anemia, necrosis of the bones, either\nof which may be fatal.\n13. By reason of the foregoing, the plaintiff has been,\nand will in the future, be obliged to expend large sums of money for medical\nand hospital attention and for medicines and other appliances. The plaintiff\nhas been incapacitated for some time and will in the future be incapacitated\nfrom pursuing any occupation for gain, and has been and will be therefore made\nto suffer pecuniary loss by reason thereof.\nJUDGMENT will be claimed on the first count in favor of the\nplaintiff and against the defendant in the sum of $100,000 together with costs\nof this suit to be taxed.\nSECOND COUNT\n1. The plaintiff repeats the allegations of paragraphs\n1 to 10 inclusive of the first count.\n2.\nBy reason of the negligent manner in which the\n1832\ndefendant conducted and carried on its business as hereinabove particularly\ndescribed and by reason of the general manner in which it carried on contin-\n-3-\nuously the business above referred to, employing and soliciting for employment\nlarge numbers of persons continuously, the defendant did in fact thereby\ncreate and maintain a nuisance, from which the plaintiff received a direct\nof\nand special injury by reason /the proximate and natural effect of said\nnuisance in introducing into and fixing and depositing in the body of the said\nplaintiff the substances hereinabove referred to and in causing them to come\nin dangerous and close proximity and contact with the body of the plaintiff.\n3. The plaintiff repeats the allegations of paragraphs\n11, 12, and 13 of the first count.\nJUDGMENT will be claimed on the second count in favor of\nthe plaintiff and against the defendant in the sum of $100,000 together with\ncosts of this suit to be taxed.\nMilton M. Unger (signed)\nATTORNEY FOR PLAINT IFF.\nUNITED STATES OF AMERICA :\nDISTRICT OF NEW JERSEY\n: SS:-\nTHE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA\nTO: UNITED STATES RADIUM CORPORATION, a corporation of the State of\nDelaware:\nYOU ARE SUMMONED to answer the annexed complaint of\nANITA J. BURRICELLI, in an action at law in the District Court of the\nUnited States for the District of New Jersey.\nAND TAKE NOTICE that unless you file your answer to said\ncomplaint with the Clerk of the District Court of the United States for the\nDistrict of New Jersey, at Trenton, within twenty days after service upon\nyou of this writ and the annexed complaint, the plaintiff may proceed in the\nsuit and judgment may be entered against you.\nWITNESS, the Honorable GUY L. FAKE, Judge\nof said Court, at Trenton, this 8th\nday of July\nNineteen Hundred and\nThirty-Five.\nGeorge T. Cranmer (signed)\nCLERK\nBy Charles E. Jaeckel (signed)\nDep. Clerk\nLAW\n5203\nUNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT\nDISTRICT OF NEW JERSEY.\nANITA J. BURRICELLI,\nPlaintiff,\n-vs-\nUNITED STATES RADIUM\nCORPORATION, a corporation\nof the State of Delaware,\nDefendants,\nSUMMONS and COMPLAINT-\nMILTON M. UNGER,\nAttorney for Plaintiff,\n11 Commerce St., Newark, N.J.\n7/10/35\nServed on F. J. White, Ass't Trust\nOfficer at 10:35 A.M.\nJUL 18 1935 10 AM"
}