Court Denies Dow Chemical Efforts to Access to Death Certificates of Plaintiff's First-Degree Relatives

BATON ROUGE, La. –– A Louisiana federal court has denied attempts by Dow Chemical Co. (NYSE:DOW) to obtain the death certificates of a benzene plaintiffs’ mother and siblings, ruling that the defendant had failed to present evidence that it was entitled to the information.

In an Oct. 4 order denying the motion, the U.S. District Court further opined that the death certificates do not indicate a medical history of the deceased and are therefore “of marginal value.”

“Furthermore, if Mr. Ventress had a ‘predisposition for cancer,’ i.e., he was a ‘fragile egg,’ that fact alone would not defeat plaintiff’s case,” …