A decade-long legal battle accusing DuPont of being responsible for life-threatening medical problems among Ohio River residents is flooding federal court in Columbus.

A decade-long legal battle accusing DuPont of being responsible for life-threatening medical problems among Ohio River residents is flooding federal court in Columbus.

Nearly 2,500 personal-injury lawsuits have been filed against DuPont as part of multidistrict litigation assigned to U.S. District Judge Edmund A. Sargus Jr. and Magistrate Judge Elizabeth A. Preston Deavers.

More than 600 already are in federal court, and the rest will be transferred from Ohio and West Virginia state courts.

The lawsuits � some on behalf of people who died � say that C8, a chemical used to make Teflon at a DuPont plant in Washington, W.Va., made area residents sick after it was dumped into the water for decades as waste. The plant is near Parkersburg, W.Va., and the C8 was in drinking water on both sides of the river.

A judicial panel decided last year that the cases, which involve both Ohio and West Virginia residents, should be heard in one court. The panel selected Columbus, in part because the federal Southern District of West Virginia was overloaded with other multidistrict lawsuits.

The lawsuits stem from a 2001 class-action case in West Virginia. Residents living near the DuPont plant sued the company, claiming that it had known of the dangers of C8 for years. As part of a 2005 settlement, DuPont agreed to filter C8 from the water and provide millions of dollars for a science panel to study whether the chemical had harmed residents.

That study of 70,000 residents found probable links between C8 exposure and kidney cancer, testicular cancer, thyroid disease, high cholesterol, pregnancy-induced hypertension and ulcerative colitis, a type of inflammatory bowel disease. Residents with those health conditions, or surviving family members, are allowed under the settlement to file personal-injury cases against DuPont.

DuPont officials issued a statement regarding the upcoming litigation: �Lawsuits such as these ignore family history, lifestyle choices and other causes of health issues and disease in specific individuals.�

The statement also said the company will �vigorously defend against any and all such lawsuits not based upon valid science.�

Harry Deitzler, a lawyer who has filed more than 900 of the lawsuits, said he expects that as many as 3,000 total lawsuits will be filed by the January deadline. He also was involved with the 2001 lawsuit.

Unlike a class-action lawsuit in which multiple plaintiffs sue one or more defendants, each plaintiff in multidistrict litigation sues separately and must prove his or her case.

The cases, however, have common elements, so fact-gathering is done jointly, and legal decisions affect all the cases. A steering committee of plaintiff lawyers guides the plaintiffs� cases, and depositions taken for one case can be used in other cases.

Sargus said several representative cases are tried first in multidistrict litigation. After that, each case is settled, withdrawn or goes to trial. The judge said he could not discuss details of the DuPont case.

The lawsuits ask for compensatory and punitive damages and payment of plaintiffs� costs for the injuries caused by what is described as DuPont�s �reckless and negligent� contamination of drinking-water supplies.

The first is scheduled for trial in September 2015. That�s the year that DuPont has said it will phase out the use of C8.

One suit, filed by the father of Travis M. Lawless of Vincent, Ohio, says that Lawless died of testicular cancer at age 19 as a result of C8 in the drinking water.

The company has used the chemical, also called perfluorooctanoic acid, or PFOA, to make nonstick and stain- and water-resistant coatings for products � including pots, pans, carpets and clothes � for more than 50 years.

Some court records show that company scientists issued internal warnings about C8 as early as 1961.

Residents near the DuPont plant who don�t have any of the six conditions linked to C8 exposure are eligible for medical monitoring paid for by DuPont as a result of the 2005 settlement. Letters about the monitoring began going out to residents last week.

Deitzler said those people can sue DuPont later if certain medical conditions show up.

kgray@dispatch.com

@reporterkathy