Gov. Joe Manchin and the West Virginia State Medical Association should not support DuPont's appeal of a nearly $382 million verdict over its handling of pollution and health threats at a zinc-smelting plant, say the plaintiffs who won the case.

Manchin and the association have filed friend-of-the-court briefs on separate issues in the complex class-action lawsuit, angering some of the 10 Spelter residents who lived with a 112-acre waste pile in the middle of their town for decades, then waited years for their day in court.

"Where were they during the trial? Why didn't they speak up then?" said Waunona Messinger Crouser, who sat through the five-week trial in Harrison Circuit Court last fall. "The longer we wait to get our medical monitoring program, the more it seems like a walk down the plank and the more ill somebody may become."

Crouser is disappointed the governor, a native of neighboring Marion County, chose the DuPont case to raise concerns about how the state Supreme Court handles appeals of punitive damage awards.

"He lives nearby us," Crouser said. "You'd think he'd feel our pain."

Spokesman Matt Turner said the governor is not siding with DuPont or questioning the findings of the jury, "nor is he asking the court to throw out the verdict."

Rather, Manchin is concerned that companies receive due process in West Virginia courts, Turner said.

Manchin wants the court to address whether consideration of a written appeal alone is adequate, or whether all defendants deserve to argue their cases in person. Only West Virginia and Virginia give their appeals courts complete discretion on whether to hear most civil cases.

Manchin intervened in the DuPont case after the court unanimously refused to hear a $404 million verdict against NiSource and Chesapeake Energy. Chesapeake cited the decision in scuttling plans for a $35 million regional headquarters in Charleston.

The court, which is in summer recess, has not yet indicated if it will hear DuPont's appeal.

DuPont continues to insist it did the right thing by Spelter, working with state regulators after 2001 to demolish factory buildings and cap the tainted site with plastic and fresh soil.

Gov. Joe Manchin and the West Virginia State Medical Association should not support DuPont's appeal of a nearly $382 million verdict over its handling of pollution and health threats at a zinc-smelting plant, say the plaintiffs who won the case.

Manchin and the association have filed friend-of-the-court briefs on separate issues in the complex class-action lawsuit, angering some of the 10 Spelter residents who lived with a 112-acre waste pile in the middle of their town for decades, then waited years for their day in court.

"Where were they during the trial? Why didn't they speak up then?" said Waunona Messinger Crouser, who sat through the five-week trial in Harrison Circuit Court last fall. "The longer we wait to get our medical monitoring program, the more it seems like a walk down the plank and the more ill somebody may become."

Crouser is disappointed the governor, a native of neighboring Marion County, chose the DuPont case to raise concerns about how the state Supreme Court handles appeals of punitive damage awards.

"He lives nearby us," Crouser said. "You'd think he'd feel our pain."

Spokesman Matt Turner said the governor is not siding with DuPont or questioning the findings of the jury, "nor is he asking the court to throw out the verdict."

Rather, Manchin is concerned that companies receive due process in West Virginia courts, Turner said.

Manchin wants the court to address whether consideration of a written appeal alone is adequate, or whether all defendants deserve to argue their cases in person. Only West Virginia and Virginia give their appeals courts complete discretion on whether to hear most civil cases.

Manchin intervened in the DuPont case after the court unanimously refused to hear a $404 million verdict against NiSource and Chesapeake Energy. Chesapeake cited the decision in scuttling plans for a $35 million regional headquarters in Charleston.

The court, which is in summer recess, has not yet indicated if it will hear DuPont's appeal.

DuPont continues to insist it did the right thing by Spelter, working with state regulators after 2001 to demolish factory buildings and cap the tainted site with plastic and fresh soil.

But jurors ruled in October that DuPont had engaged in wanton, willful and reckless conduct in its operation of the smelter and ordered the Delaware-based company to pay $196.2 million in punitive damages to deter future misconduct.

Nonpunitive damages included $130 million to fund a 40-year health screening plan to monitor the roughly 8,000 plaintiffs for future possible ailments. The verdict also included $55.5 million to clean up private property.

The plan includes CT scans every two years to look for signs of lung cancer, but the medical association argues the risk of causing cancer with repeated high doses of radiation outweighs the potential benefits of routine screening.

"We tend to just accept X-rays and CTs and MRIs and PET scans as routine medical care that has no potential adverse risk," said Evan Jenkins, the association's executive director and a state senator representing Cabell County. "The public, we think, needs to be better informed that these kinds of scans do have risks."

Jenkins said the association isn't trying to make a political statement, but does routinely file friend-of-the-court briefs on emerging issues. It wants the Supreme Court to think hard about medical monitoring plans.

The association also argues that in a communication with Judge Thomas Bedell, the jury indicated a desire to remove part of the medical monitoring plan - a request Bedell denied.

"This is what the court crafted, not the jury," Jenkins said.

But that doesn't sit well with plaintiff Rebecca Morlock, who sees Manchin's and the association's court filings as government's betrayal of its citizens.

"Our friend of the court was the jury. They found DuPont guilty," she said, adding that the CT scans are voluntary under the court's plan.

"It's our choice whether we have them or not," Morlock said. "DuPont didn't ask us if we wanted to volunteer to expose several thousand people to their toxic chemicals. ... And if they had asked me first, I certainly would have said no."