HARRISBURG, Pa. (Jun 7, 1996 11:29 p.m. EDT) -- A federal judge late Friday threw out more than 2,000 damage claims filed against the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant, saying plaintiffs had offered a "paucity of proof" to support their cases.
The lawsuits were filed by area residents who blamed exposure to radiation released in 1979 nuclear accident for health problems including leukemia and other cancers.
But U.S. District Court Judge Sylvia Rambo granted a summary judgment in favor of the defense, and took pains to explain why, attaching a 97-page memorandum to the judgment she released about 6 p.m.
Rambo concluded that the plaintiffs had not -- in nearly two decades -- mustered the evidence needed to support their case.
"Viewing all evidence before the court in a light most favorable to plaintiffs, the court finds the evidence insufficient to create any material factual dispute and insufficient to carry plaintiff's burden of proof at trial," the judge wrote.
"The court has searched the record for any and all evidence which construed in a light most favorable to plaintiffs creates a genuine issue of material fact warranting submission of their claims to a jury. This effort has been in vain," Rambo concluded.
The U.S. Supreme Court had refused in April to rule out possible punitive-damages awards for the more than 2,000 plaintiffs.
Eric Epstein, who is not a plaintiff but serves as chairman of the Three Mile Island Alert watchdog group, said the ruling would be traumatic for plaintiffs.
"There is no safe threshold of exposure to radiation," he said. "I think clearly Judge Rambo has been overzealous in her role as a gatekeeper and a purveyor of justice."
But Ray Dotter, a spokesman for General Public Utilities Corp., of Parsippany, N.J., which owns the central Pennsylvania plant, said the ruling was consistent with the findings of reliable scientists.
A combination of mechanical and human failures allowed the Unit 2 reactor to lose cooling water in March 1979. Part of the core melted and some radioactive gases were released into the air near Harrisburg, Pa.
It remains the nation's worst commercial nuclear accident. It took almost $1 billion and more than a decade to remove the damaged nuclear fuel.
But the Pennsylvania Health Department said studies show no evidence to link the radiation releases with any adverse health effects other than stress.
Rambo noted the "grave consequence" of her decision: "Thousands of individuals who believe that they have suffered adverse medical effects as a result of the TMI accident will not have an opportunity to have their claims heard by a jury of their peers."
But, she added, the case, like all others coming before the court, had to be governed by the standards governing the award of summary judgment. Those standards, combined with the scarce evidence to support the plaintiffs' claims, led to her decision, she said.
Plaintiffs' spokesmen did not immediately return messages left on answering machines.
Dotter issued a short statement expressing "great sympathy for people with serious illnesses and for their families."
Still, "the court's decision is consistent with what reliable science says -- that the TMI-2 accident did not cause the illnesses claimed by the plaintiffs," the statement said. "Thousands of pages of evidence were submitted, the judge heard many days of expert testimony, but no valid reliable evidence was submitted to contradict what science has said about the accident."
Epstein said he expected plaintiffs would appeal.
"Clearly there's enough evidence to substantiate the claims of adverse physical as well as adverse psychological effects." Epstein said. "In essence, the people of this area have been victimized twice, once by a flawed technology and now by a flawed legal system."