Claimants hail lead poisoning ruling

Legal representatives in the Anglo American lead poisoning case have hailed the Gauteng High Court (Johannesburg) appeal decision as a ‘major step forward” in the longstanding class action claim. They say the December judgment effectively blocked access to justice for the people of Kabwe in Zambia. The court has given the claimants, who are seeking compensation for alleged lead poisoning by Anglo American, the go-ahead to appeal an earlier ruling that threw out their class action certification. The Mail & Guardian reports that Mbuyisa Moleele Attorneys, a Johannesburg law firm and its consultants, Leigh Day, an international law firm specialising in human rights and mass environmental tort claims, say the evidence submitted to the court by the claimants in support of this claim is clear. ‘From the early 1970s, reports by the mine doctors showed that several children had died of lead poisoning from the mine and a high proportion of children in the local communities were suffering from massive blood lead levels,’ the firms said. They are representing 12 claimants on behalf of 140 000 children and women of childbearing age who were allegedly victims of environmental contamination by Anglo’s mine in Kabwe.  The court in December ruled in favour of Anglo American, dismissing the certification application after almost a year of deliberation. 

The M&G notes that Anglo said the ruling highlighted the claim’s multiple legal and factual flaws. Kabwe was an Anglo American mine from 1925 to 1974. It is one of the most lead-polluted sites in the world, where studies over the past 45 years have shown high levels of the heavy metal in a significant proportion of young children. Generations of children have been affected, including lead encephalopathy (brain damage) and death from lead poisoning. Last week, in granting permission, Justice Leonie Windell found that an appeal against her earlier judgment in December had ‘reasonable prospects of success on at least one ground of appeal’. Windell found that there are ‘compelling reasons’ to grant the appeal, as class action law is still being developed in SA. She said ‘there are current matters of law of public importance which directly implicate constitutional rights’. In her 126-page judgment delivered in December, Windell ruled that a claim against Anglo American SA over the widespread lead poisoning across Kabwe could not proceed as a class action. She found that, in addition to the absence of a prima facie case, which disposes of the application, the trial would be unmanageable if the class definitions were certified on the broad basis sought by the applicants.

Full Mail & Guardian report