With a trial scheduled for Monday, 222 months after the first bauxite exposure suits were filed, owners of St. Croix’s former aluminum plant have again claimed they aren’t ready.
Facing life-threatening lung ailments, former St. Croix industrial workers started suing their old employers in October 2007, claiming they’d been negligently exposed to carcinogens and known lung irritants.
Attorneys for Lockheed Martin, the aerospace and defense giant that now owns the company that manufactured aluminum in St. Croix for decades, asked for several delays in a 2021 suit brought by former maintenance worker Milton Burt. Burt claimed breathing in decades of bauxite caused him pneumoconiosis, sometimes known as black lung.
Lockheed attorneys suggested a 2022 trial be moved to 2024, then October 2025, then April 13, then to April 27, this time to accommodate their expert witnesses. Days later, Lockheed attorneys said those witnesses wouldn’t be available after all and the trial should be put off until October or November.
Attorneys for Burt suggested scheduling conflicts for the expert witnesses — who often command more than $400 an hour for their service — were not insurmountable. The industrial hygiene expert traveling until May 16 could get Wi-Fi in his hotel room, they argued. And the medical expert testifying in trials in California, Washington, Connecticut, and Texas through early September, surely isn’t busy every moment of that time, the attorneys wrote in their objection to another trial delay.
Virgin Islands Superior Court Judge Alphonso Andrews Jr. had denied their earlier motion to reschedule for autumn, saying Lockheed attorneys weren’t required to explain exactly why expert witnesses were unavailable but did have to give some reasonable excuse.
Attorneys for Burt wrote the court to say Lockheed attorneys appeared to have not even tried to get on the expert witnesses’ calendars.
“For nearly a month between March 24, 2026, and April 20, 2026, defendants made no effort whatsoever to inquire as to whether their experts would be available to sit for a trial deposition, to appear out of order, or to appear remotely,” they wrote. “Dodging and weaving cannot change the hard math.”
On Friday, Lockheed attorneys wrote the court claiming they were being treated unfairly.
“These proffers are made to preserve the record and to demonstrate concrete and irreparable prejudice to Lockheed Martin’s ability to fairly present its defenses,” they wrote to Judge Andrews.
They cited their expert witnesses’ unavailability, several unresolved motions, and an earlier ruling barring mention of the Worker’s Compensation Act.
“As a consequence, Lockheed Martin is prevented from placing before the jury evidence that could negate liability or limit plaintiff’s recovery, thereby resulting in an uneven trial posture and irreparable prejudice,” the attorneys wrote.
As of Sunday afternoon, the court had not responded to Lockheed’s request for delay nor claims of prejudice.
