Judge denies company’s attempt to keep cancer patients’ cases from going to trial

In 2024, a group of Southeast L.A. residents filed a lawsuit against Sterigenics, a company operating in Vernon that uses a controversial chemical to sterilize medical equipment.

On Thursday, those plaintiffs cleared a key hurdle that now paves the way for their case to potentially move forward to a trial or settlement.

Residents say Sterigenics has knowingly exposed them and their neighbors to unsafe levels of ethylene oxide for decades, without warning them of the potential health risks. Ethylene oxide is a colorless gas that’s central to the sterilization process — it’s also a known carcinogen.

Residents say the company is responsible for their cancer diagnoses, or for the deaths of their loved ones.

In the nearly two years that residents have been seeking relief from the court, dozens of other local residents have also filed lawsuits against the company, along with people who were diagnosed with cancer after working at a business that operates next to Sterigenics.

The company, which has denied wrongdoing, filed several motions for summary judgment against the plaintiffs — a legal tool that can be used to keep cases from going to trial.

But after two days of back and forth in a downtown L.A. courthouse, Judge Lawrence Riff denied all the motions.

What kind of relief do residents want?

Most of the plaintiffs in the original case have been diagnosed with breast cancer. The others — including a toddler and a man who fell ill when he was in high school — have been diagnosed with leukemia, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, stomach cancer or other conditions. The plaintiffs also include long-term Maywood residents who’ve lost a parent or spouse. All of them have lived less than a mile away from Sterigenics.

Court documents show that the Maywood residents want a jury trial and seek compensation for past and future medical expenses, funeral costs, lost wages, and the fear and “mental anguish” of being sick or watching a family member die.

Their lawsuit also asks Sterigenics to:

• keep its emissions “within health-protective standards”; 
• immediately notify regulators when their equipment breaks down;
• provide real-time reporting of its emissions to community members;
• and pay additional penalties to deter the company from committing future violations.

The group filed its lawsuit against Sterigenics and its affiliates in March 2024. Other residents filed at least six more lawsuits later in 2024 and 2025. Two more local lawsuits have been filed against the company this year. Plaintiffs in these other cases seek similar compensation.

There are currently two trial dates set for the original case: Jan. 25, 2027, and April 15, 2027.

What is Sterigenics’ history in LA?

Sterigenics runs two facilities in Vernon. Every year, the company sterilizes more than 45 million medical supplies, including surgical kits, syringes, heart valves, and pacemakers. These products then go out to nearly 100 healthcare manufacturers.

Vernon is a small, largely industrial city located five miles southeast of downtown L.A. Maywood is an adjoining city with more than 23,000 residents, most of whom are Latino and working class.

At the hearings this week, attorneys for Sterigenics and its parent company, Sotera Health, insisted there’s not enough ethylene oxide flowing in the neighborhood to cause cancer.

According to Judge Riff, the methodology of an expert Sterigenics relied on was “not sufficiently reasoned,” in part because her assessment of ethylene oxide emissions in the area surrounding the facility did not account for changes over multiple decades.

LAist has reached out to Sterigenics for further comment.