It seemed to many to be a simple case, with an obvious outcome. A small mining town where mesothelioma and other asbestos-related diseases were running rampant through the community. A large corporation with a history of poisoning people who lived near their factories. A highly publicized federal case that got national media coverage. And yet, to the surprise of many, the federal trial against W. R. Grace & Co. ended in acquittal. Now, legal experts and Libby residents are trying to understand where the prosecution went wrong.
Many believe that one of the major reasons the trial against Grace ended without Libby residents getting any compensation was the treatment of star witness Robert Locke. A disgruntled former Grace employee, Locke lost his credibility when it was revealed that Locke may have perjured himself on the stand. In addition, it was believed that Locke received special treatment from federal EPA agents.
Judge Molloy, who oversaw the proceedings, came to feel that the prosecution team was incompetent, and lacked proper planning. The prosecution team had their work cut out for them, as they not only had to prove that Grace executives conspired to hide the truth about the asbestos-tainted vermiculite they were mining in Libby, but that the executives did so in violation of federal law. The Clean Air Act did not become law until 1990, which is also the year the Libby mine was shut down. Some legal experts believe that if the government had taken legal action against Grace years ago, the case would have proceeded more smoothly.
"There were many things wrong with the prosecution, but the simplest point is that it was preposterous for the government to claim an extended ‘cover-up’ when in fact there were published scientific papers about Libby and disease in the 1970s, and by the mid-1980s, plaintiff’s expert Barry Castleman had devoted a subsection of his book to Grace, the Libby mine and internal Grace documents about Libby," said Kirk Hartley, a distinguished attorney who specializes in asbestos cases.