Court Fight Over Beverly Hills School Turns Nasty
Date: 21-Jul-03
Country: USA
Author: Dan Whitcomb
The charges flew after Beverly Hills issued a press release saying that attorney Masry and his law firm could not prove that chemicals from oil drilling at Beverly Hills High School were causing cancer and faced contempt charges by a judge for withholding information from the city.
Masry - who along with Brockovich was the subject of the hit Hollywood blockbuster movie, "Erin Brockovich" - responded by calling the release a lie and challenging Beverly Hills city officials to a public debate over the matter.
"The city of Beverly Hills has issued a fraudulent press release," Masry told Reuters.
"Erin and I are concerned about the safety of Beverly Hills High alumni," he said. "If I was an alumni of Beverly Hills High I would be at the doctor's office every year or so (to be monitored for signs of cancer). What the city and school district are doing is delivering propaganda, saying everything is fine to keep down the number of (plaintiffs)."
Beverly Hills, home to some of America's most exclusive neighborhoods, collects hundreds of thousands of per year in royalties from the oil wells, which were first drilled in 1906 and predate the high school.
Masry sued the city, along with major oil and gas companies, on behalf of Beverly Hills High School alumni who believe they contracted cancer from toxic chemicals released during decades of drilling.
Masry said he and Brockovich had turned over the information and were "issuing a challenge" to city and school district officials to debate the matter with Beverly Hills residents watching.
"At the end of our discussion the citizens can then decide who is incompetent and fraudulent - Erin and Ed or the school and the district," he said.
But Larry Wiener, city attorney for Beverly Hills, said officials had no interest in debating Masry and Brockovich and accused them of sitting on information that could help determine whether or not the campus was safe.
"We have students going back to school in the fall and we think it is far more important to ensure the health and safety of those students than to worry about a lawsuit," Wiener said.
"All of our tests show no problem," he said. "If Mr. Masry has some evidence that there is a health and safety risk we think he has a moral and legal obligation to provide that to the community."
City and school district officials say they and a state agency have conducted extensive tests and found that the campus was safe.
The case began when two former Beverly Hills High School students met in a doctor's office where they were being treated for cancer. One of the women later met Brockovich at a book signing and told her about a seemingly abnormal number of cancer cases among her schoolmates.
