Japanese Government Found Partly to Blame for Minamata Disease
Oct. 15, 2004 (Bloomberg) -- Japan's Supreme Court said the government shares responsibility for the spread of Minamata mercury-poisoning disease in the 1950s and 1960s, closing years of litigation in the environmental contamination case.

It was the first Supreme Court judgment on the government's responsibility in the 48-year history of the disease. Judge Hiroharu Kitagawa upheld a 2001 high court ruling that the central government and a local government must compensate victims, along with chemical maker Chisso Corp.

The court ordered the governments to pay a total of 71.5 million yen ($652,900) to 37 of 45 plaintiffs, said Kenichi Yokota, an official of a support group for the plaintiffs.

``This is a very big ruling for us,'' said Yokota, who listened to the ruling in the courtroom and spoke to Bloomberg by telephone. ``The compensation amount is too low, but it was good that the Supreme Court upheld the high court's ruling.''

The disease killed hundreds of people, disabled thousands and produced birth defects in the city of Minamata, Kumamoto prefecture, on Kyushu Island. The poisoning was caused by seafood contaminated with organic mercury that Chisso dumped into the local bay.

Chisso, founded in Minamata in 1908, was using methyl mercury to make acetaldehyde, a material for polyvinyl chloride. Minamata disease was detected in 1953. The company discharged untreated factory waste into Minamata Bay until 1968, when the government recognized the emissions as the cause of the disease.

Last Minamata Case

The Kumamoto government took steps to catch poisoned fish and purify water in Minamata Bay until 1997, when it declared the water quality to be normal.

The lawsuit was the last Minamata case remaining after others were withdrawn following a 1995 government-proposed settlement. It was originally filed in the Osaka District Court in 1982.

The district court in 1994 ordered Chisso to pay compensation to some plaintiffs, while ruling the governments not responsible. That ruling was overturned in 2001 by the Osaka High Court, which said the central and local governments also were liable. The High Court ordered the governments and the company to pay a total of 320 million yen to plaintiffs.

The governments and the plaintiffs appealed to the Supreme Court, with the plaintiffs claiming, among other things, that the governments should have banned consumption of local fish and clams.

The high court ruled the governments had failed to implement clean water safeguards to prevent the poisoning

Japanese government fined

Penalized for inaction in pollution disaster

BY KOZO MIZOGUCHI

Associated Press


TOKYO - Japan's top court ordered the government Friday to pay $703,000 in damages to victims of the Minamata mercury poisoning 22 years after their famous case was filed over an industrial pollution disaster that killed more than 1,700 people and caused diseased mothers to give birth to deformed babies.

After the decision, several plaintiffs rushed from the courthouse and unfurled a banner declaring their victory to cheering supporters. The government apologized to victims for failing to prevent the pollution.

The Minamata poisoning was Japan's worst case of industrial pollution. Since the 1950s, hundreds of people have contracted Minamata disease - a neurological disorder caused by mercury poisoning - from eating tainted fish. The disease, first discovered in the 1950s, was named for Minamata Bay in southern Japan where a com-pany dumped tons of mercury compounds.

Babies of poisoned mothers were born with gnarled limbs. The victims were seared into memory by a famous series of photographs by W. Eugene Smith from the 1970s, including one of a woman holding her deformed child in a bathtub.

The case came to symbolize the dark side of Japan's remarkable growth to the world's second-largest economy in the post World War II era.

The Supreme Court upheld on Friday a high court ruling from April 2001, bringing an end to the case filed more than two decades ago, court officials said.

The court said the government and Kumamoto prefecture (state) failed to stop chemical manufacturer Chisso Corp. from dumping tons of mercury compounds into Minamata Bay beginning in the 1930s, said the plaintiffs' lawyer, Satoe Nagashima.

Chisso Corp., based in Tokyo, had accepted a 2001 high court ruling to pay some $2.18 million in damages to the plaintiffs. The company declined to comment Friday.

Nagashima said 37 plaintiffs were awarded between $13,700 and $22,800 in compensation, depending on the seriousness of their illness.




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