Class Action Lawsuit Against Bullseye Glass Now Seeks Over $1 Billion in Damages

The suit claims damages of up to $230,000 per lot, $5,000 per household, and $203,000 per person.

The latest filing in a class action lawsuit against Bullseye Glass seeks more than $1 billion for people living near the company's Southeast Portland factory.

The amended complaint, filed Thursday in Multnomah County Circuit Court, seeks $153,000 to pay for current and future medical expenses for each person living in the Southeast Portland area where elevated levels of heavy metals have been detected in the air.

The suit also demands $50,000 per person for "mental anguish, distress, annoyance, inconvenience, and/or interference with their normal daily activities and the use of their property."

There are about 6,000 people "who live in areas near Bullseye Glass Co. that

have shown elevated levels of toxic emissions," the lawsuit says.

Those damages alone would total $1.2 billion, but the suit seeks more: $230,000 per lot for heavy metal testing, cleanup and "diminution in value," as well as $5,000 per household for "damage to or loss of personal property."

"Bullseye has been using the neighborhood's air and backyards as its private dumping ground for the arsenic, cadmium, hexavalent chromium, and other toxins it sends up its smokestacks," the lawsuit reads.

The updated lawsuit comes just two days after Bullseye resumed use of cadmium in its factory, following the installation of an air filter under the supervision of the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality.

The suit was filed by 12 plaintiffs on behalf of all Oregon citizens living around Bullseye Glass, in areas where air testing has shown elevated levels of heavy metals.

The lawsuit is an updated version of a lawsuit filed March 3, a month after The Portland Mercury reported the abnormally high levels of pollutants in Southeast Portland's air. That suit, filed by only seven plaintiffs living near Bullseye's Southeast Portland factory, sought "an injunction ordering Bullseye to only resume the use of arsenic, cadmium, and chromium if it has first installed adequate emissions controls equipment."

But the plaintiffs indicated in the earlier lawsuit that, following Oregon's required 30-day waiting period, they intended to amend the complaint to include claims for damages.

A Bullseye Glass spokesman was not immediately available for comment.

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