Transit Workers File Suit Over Cancer Claims
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
Several New York City Transit workers are claiming that they contracted cancer because the city’s bus engines lacked proper environmental controls.
Diesel exhaust from the engines caused lung cancer, throat cancer, and heart disease among the workers, according to a lawsuit filed in state court yesterday. The manufacturers are accused of concealing the engines’ health effects and disabling emissions safeguards.
“The Defendants were each negligent … by designing and manufacturing diesel engines containing ‘defeat devices,’ which allowed the engines to pass pre-sale emission tests, but then turned off the emissions control during use,” the lawsuit states.
The workers include bus drivers and mechanics employed by New York City Transit, at least one of whom died as a result of the exhaust, according to the suit. The defendants include General Motors Corporation, Northrop Grumman Corporation, and Orion Bus Industries, as well as other companies.
A spokesman for Northrop Grumman declined to comment, as did a spokesman for the Transit Authority. The authority is not named as a defendant in the suit.
Representatives for General Motors Corporation and Orion Bus Industries could not be reached for comment.
