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Flint Journal, The (includes 8 weekly titles)(MI) - Flint Journal, The (MI)
May 7, 2006 - 10 years ...100,000 pages ...$800,000
Attorney's long fight ends with justice for his father
Author: Ken Palmer; kpalmer@flintjournal.com * 810.766.6313
Edition: THE FLINT JOURNAL FIRST EDITION - Section: LOCAL NEWS
Page: A01 - Dateline: FLINT
Index Terms: Flint area general news - FNEW - local news
localnewsCOURTS & CRIMES - Article Text:
When he left his corporate job in Illinois and moved back to Flint to take on the world's largest corporation, Dale E. Bock thought he knew what to expect: living leaner, making sacrifices.
"We didn't know at the time it was going to take everything we had," said Bock, now 49, of Flushing.
"It really was a family decision," said Bock, now 49, of Flushing. "In my wife's words, 'If you don't do this, you're going to be miserable.' So we decided to give the case everything we had."
In the end, Bock couldn't keep the one promise he made to his wife, Rosemary: that they wouldn't touch his pension.
But Bock had a compelling reason to leave his six-figure legal job with State Farm Insurance, refinance his house twice and burn through his savings and pension money: his father.
George E. Bock died in 1995 from an illness linked to his job at General Motors' Flint V-8 Engine Plant.
He and a co-worker, Robert Meyer, had discovered that the chemical soup they worked in every day might be responsible for a rash of illnesses, including serious lung disorders.
When no lawyers around Flint would take a massive case against the area's largest employer, the younger Bock decided to do it himself.
He sued General Motors and a supplier on behalf of his father and other workers who became ill from exposure to metalworking fluids.
"I knew it was going to be a big case, but I don't think I knew it was going to be a 10-year fight," he said. "One year turned into two. Two years turned into five, and five years turned into 10. And the pension fund was gone."
Ten years, 100,000 pages of documents and $800,000 in costs later, the workers won. The last claims were settled earlier this year.
Ultimately, GM escaped liability.
But Cincinnati Milacron, which supplied the fluids and monitored their use at the plant, settled claims by dozens of workers who were sickened by exposure to chemical compounds that hung in the air and permeated their clothing.
All along, the companies denied they knowingly subjected employees to hazardous levels of the chemicals. Neither is commenting on the case or the resolution.
Bock said the litigation was difficult and acrimonious.
"There were many, many dark times when the cash was gone, and I wondered how I and my family would support ourselves," Bock said.
"Then Bob Meyer would come in and buy me a new suit. These people became more than just clients. They would stop in and offer words of support.
A company man
In 1956, George Bock hitchhiked from Simcoe, Ontario, to Flint and landed a job at the engine plant.
"He was actually on his way to Buffalo," Dale Bock said. "A driver who picked him up said he'd heard they were hiring hundreds of people in Flint He got out and headed (to Flint)."
A small but robust man who played hockey well into his 40s, Bock fell ill in the fall of 1993, about the same time that 6,000 gallons of coolant spilled into a pit beneath his work area.
Bock had trouble breathing and was overcome by fatigue, but doctors didn't know why. He turned ashen gray and gained 50 to 60 pounds, a side effect of the steroids prescribed to ease his breathing problems.
Bock, his wife, Ruth, and Meyer, who suffered similar symptoms, traveled to universities throughout the area, looking for answers.
"George was tenacious," Meyer said. "He was like a pit bull. When he bit into something, he didn't let go. He got me fired up."
The quest led Bock and Meyer to a Canadian government agency in Windsor, Ontario, where they saw dozens of studies on the health effects of metalworking fluids.
They also found an expert at Michigan State University who performed tests and advised them not to go back to work at the plant, at least not without breathing protection.
Meyer said he offered to pay the $500 cost of a positive airflow respirator, but plant officials refused to allow it.
"The plant doctor said we can't let you came back to work wearing something like that because it would scare the rest of the employees," he said
In 1994, after being tipped off by a union representative at the plant, Bock and Meyer attended an industry seminar on metalworking fluids in Dearborn.
"We crashed the party," Meyer said. "They were looking at studies that had already been done (about the effects of metalworking fluids)."
George Bock died on April 25, 1995, from a heart attack allegedly brought on by hypersensitivity pneumonitis, a disorder that restricts breathing and causes scarring in the lungs. He was 60.
Dale Bock advised Meyer and other workers to find a local attorney.
"We couldn't find anybody else to take it," said Meyer, 61, of Genesee Township. "They'd look at it and say, 'You've got a heck of a good case, but it's too time-consuming and too much to take on."
Home again
Dale Bock, a 1975 graduate of Holly High School, earned degrees from Oakland University, the University of Nebraska Law School and the National Law Center in Washington, D.C.
He was in charge of class-action litigation at State Farm, earning a good living with good fringe benefits.
"I wasn't a novice in litigation," he said. "I'd had big-case litigation experience."
But it was not an easy decision to move Rosemary, daughter Katie and son Adam to Michigan on a financially tenuous proposition, he said. Another daughter, Robin, was born six years ago.
Bock rented office space from attorneys in the Citizens Bank building and devoted virtually all of his time to the workers' suits.
He did research, reviewed potential claims from hundreds of workers and wrote most of the court pleadings.
Katie and Dale Bock's brother, Matt, also helped with computer and document duties, while Rosemary helped with proofreading.
They did not go it alone: There was co-counsel Valdemar L. Washington, a former Genesee Circuit Court judge, and a determined group of clients who not only helped finance the litigation but also provided emotional support.
Two years into the case, famed trial lawyer Gerry Spence also joined the workers' legal team, bringing more resources and a higher profile.
The legal team discovered key evidence through luck or happenstance because Milacron wouldn;t reveal it, Bock said.
"(And) we were fortunate to have a judge who would take the time to learn the case, who stuck this case out for 10 years," said Bock, referring to Genesee Circuit Judge Geoffrey L. Neithercut.
"Without all that, this case would have been a quiet disaster."
But the most important piece might have been Bock, a soft-spoken, unassuming man who has the tenacity and determination of his father, his colleagues and clients said.
"Dale Bock went way above and beyond," said Meyer, who went on disability for lung and other problems similar to George Bock's. "He did things that just amazed us."
Setbacks, then resolution
Bock and Washington initially sought to make the case a class action, meaning that hundreds or even thousands of other workers might have been able to seek damages if it went forward.
Ultimately, they decided to pursue the workers' claims individually because a class action would have prolonged the litigation for several more years.
A big blow came in 2001, when the state Court of Appeals overturned Neithercut and ordered that GM be dismissed from the case, saying the workers hadn't established a claim against the automaker.
But the appeals court denied Cincinnati Milacron's appeal for dismissal, and the Michigan Supreme Court subsequently refused to hear an appeal of the appellate decision.
Settlement terms were not disclosed, and it is unclear how many workers were compensated in the litigation.
Bock would say only that "many dozens" of the 555 workers who asked to be included in the litigation had verifiable claims.
He, Washington and other attorneys who worked on the case were compensated for their work. But for him, at least, there was no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, he said.
"We both came through it OK," he said, referring to Washington. "Did I do better than I would have done if I'd have stayed in my old job? No. But I don't know that I could have done it differently."
The case was never about money, said Bock, who signed off on any interest in his father's estate to avoid a potential conflict.
"My dad and my mom were decent, hard-working blue-collar people who would do anything for someone who needed help. They taught me early on it was more about decency, integrity and honesty.
"My dad always told me that he didn't care about money. It was just the way people kept score."
Still angry at GM
Dale Bock said he's "sickened" that GM escaped the litigation before all the evidence could be heard.
In dismissing GM from the case, the appeals court made it even tougher for workers to recover damages in what already was an employer-friendly state, he said.
Two similar lawsuits by workers at the Flint Metal Center and the former Buick City complex are still pending. But there's hardly been a boom of similar cases across the country, he said.
Still, the suits have resulted in a greater awareness of the hazards of metalworking fluids, he said. The V-8 plant is gone, and Flint Engine South, the new factory on Van Slyke, has a much safer system, he said.
"I think we think we have changed forever how these metalworking fluids are used," Bock said. "There also has been a tremendous amount of satisfaction and relief for these workers and their families."
With the case finished, Bock is starting over again, handling labor-related cases from an office on Miller Road in Flint Township.
Katie Bock, now 21, plans to become a lawyer, largely because of her experience in her grandfather's case.
Dale Bock said he's still struck by ironies in the case.
His father, a loyal company man, was a top suggestion award winner at the engine plant and paid for all of his son's education with bonuses from suggestion awards, the younger Bock said.
But after his father became sick, the company treated him like a malingerer and refused to grant him worker's compensation, he said.
The week of his father's funeral, he told company attorneys he would go away if GM paid the worker's comp it owed, Dale Bock said.
And if they didn't?
"I told them, 'I'm George Bock with two law degrees,'" he said.
Caption:
George E. Bock died April 25, 1995, at the age of 60.
Bock amassed boxes of files over a decade as he pressed the case over health effects of metalworking fluids.
The Flint Journal * Lisa DeJong
Bock's father, George, worked at General Motors' former Flint V-8 Engine Plant, shown in 1997.
Dale E. Bock has reached the end of a 10-year legal fight against GM and a supplier.
Meyer
Katie Bock
Memo:
A fluid timeline
Here are key dates in the litigation over the health effects of metalworking fluids:
* SEPTEMBER 1993: 6,000 GALLONS OF CONCENTRATED COOLANT SPILL INTO A PIT BENEATH MACHINE OPERATORS AT THE GENERAL MOTORS FLINT V-8 ENGINE PLANT.
* APRIL 1995: LONGTIME V-8 FACTORY WORKER GEORGE E. BOCK, 60, DIES OF A HEART ATTACK BROUGHT ON BY COMPLICATIONS FROM HYPERSENSITIVITY PNEUMONITIS, A LUNG DISEASE LINKED TO EXPOSURE TO METALWORKING FLUIDS.
* 1996: ATTORNEY DALE E. BOCK, SON OF GEORGE BOCK, FILES LAWSUITS AGAINST GM AND CINCINNATI MILACRON, A SUPPLIER, ON BEHALF OF HIS FATHER AND OTHER WORKERS ALLEGEDLY HARMED BY EXPOSURE TO METALWORKING FLUIDS.
* NOVEMBER 1998: LAWYERS FOR THE WORKERS ANNOUNCE THAT FAMED ATTORNEY AND AUTHOR GERRY SPENCE HAS JOINED THEIR TEAM.
* SEPTEMBER 1999: GENESEE CIRCUIT JUDGE GEOFFREY L. NEITHERCUT GRANTS CLASS-ACTION STATUS TO THE LITIGATION, MEANING HUNDREDS OR THOUSANDS OF OTHER WORKERS MIGHT BE ABLE TO SEEK DAMAGES.
* MARCH 2000: THE 21 ORIGINAL PLAINTIFFS DROP THEIR REQUEST FOR A CLASS ACTION BECAUSE IT WOULD DELAY RESOLUTION OF THE CASE. THEIR ATTORNEYS FILE A SEPARATE SUIT ON BEHALF OF 17 OTHER WORKERS AT THE ENGINE PLANT.
* APRIL 2000: NEITHERCUT IMPOSES MORE THAN $200,000 IN SANCTIONS AGAINST ATTORNEYS FOR CINCINNATI MILACRON FOR STALLING AND HIDING INFORMATION FROM THE WORKERS AND THE COURT.
* JULY 2001: THE STATE COURT OF APPEALS OVERTURNS NEITHERCUT AND RULES THAT GM BE DISMISSED FROM THE LITIGATION. THE COURT, HOWEVER, DENIES CINCINNATI MILACRON'S APPEAL TO BE DISMISSED FROM THE SUIT.
* MAY 2002: THE STATE SUPREME COURT DECLINES TO HEAR APPEALS BY THE WORKERS AND MILACRON, LETTING THE APPEALS COURT RULING STAND.
* SPRING 2003: ON THE EVE OF TRIAL, ATTORNEYS FOR THE WORKERS AND MILACRON REACH AN AGREEMENT IN PRINCIPLE TO SETTLE THE FIRST SUIT COVERING 21 WORKERS.
* FEBRUARY/MARCH 2006: ATTORNEYS SETTLE THE REMAINING CLAIMS, ENDING A FULL DECADE OF LITIGATION.
Copyright 2006 The Flint Journal. All Rights Reserved. Used by NewsBank with Permission.
Record Number: 0413844884
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