One-time St. Croix aluminum manufacturers and about 80 of their former employees reached a formal settlement Tuesday, according to court records, just as the long-awaited trial for alleged exposure to carcinogenic industrial dust was to begin. Details of the settlement have not been revealed but roughly 85 more bauxite and asbestos suits remain open against former Virgin Islands aluminum refiners.
Attorneys for Lockheed Martin, the defense and aerospace giant that now owns companies that processed bauxite for aluminum manufacturing for decades in St. Croix, and attorneys for former maintenance worker Milton Burt filed papers in Superior Court Monday indicating they were approaching a settlement. Judge Alphonso Andrews Jr. released the jury that afternoon.
Some of the cases settled were first filed in 2007, although most were brought between 2020 and 2022. Similar suits go back even further. Many of the original claimants died, with the suits carried on by family members.
St. Croix-based attorneys for Lockheed did not immediately reply to messages seeking comment. Attorneys for Burt and other plaintiffs confirmed a settlement had been reached but declined to comment further.
Employees of aluminum manufacturer Martin Marietta, which later became Lockheed Martin, claimed the company failed to equip or properly warn them of exposure to bauxite dust and other cancer-causing lung irritants. Burt was a maintenance worker at the plant for 26 years, according to a lawsuit he filed in 2021, who had little or no protection from bauxite dust, asbestos and more.
Burt and others developed pneumoconiosis — respiratory ailments sometimes called black lung, according to court records. Still pending before the Superior Court are other allegations of lung scarring from exposure to bauxite dust and asbestos.
Anthony Allick and Martin Matthew, also suffering from pneumoconiosis, sued their former employers, now called Glencore, in 2021 with claims similar to Burt’s: Lax industrial oversight led to otherwise preventable illness. Attorneys for the men hoped for November or January jury trials. More than 80 others have filed similar suits.
