Lawyers fined for releasing confidential 3M documents

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AP) - The attorneys battling 3M in a lawsuit over groundwater pollution in some eastern Twin Cities communities have been ordered to pay the company an $86,894 penalty for turning over confidential 3M documents to a newspaper reporter and a state agency.

The attorneys, who said their release of the documents was a "major screwup," represent residents who allege they were affected by the contamination.

3M gave the plaintiffs' lawyers the documents under a confidentiality agreement that was part of the lawsuit proceedings in Washington County District Court, and didn't want them disclosed.

But the attorneys told the judge in the case that they inadvertently included some of the confidential material in a packet of information given to the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, which was reviewing 3M cleanup issues.

The attorneys gave copies of the documents to the Star Tribune in Minneapolis based on a request from a reporter.

The Star Tribune used the documents to write a story in April disclosing that 3M scientists in the 1980s worried that chemicals used in Scotchgard and Teflon might persist and accumulate in the soil and water. But they suggested that rigorous testing might prove that the compounds were environmentally sound.

In levying the fine, retired federal judge Jonathan Lebedoff, a special master in the case, wrote that he was "deeply disturbed by Plaintiffs' counsel's serious breach of the protective order."

When the lawyers realized they'd released confidential documents, they asked the agency and the newspaper to return the documents. The agency did, while the Star Tribune did not.

(Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)