Shoecraft v. Dow

Shoecraft v. Dow

In the 1960s, Billie Shoecraft was a housewife and mother in her forties living

with her husband and family in the canyon lands of the Tonto National Forest

near Globe, Arizona. A spunky 5-foot-4, weighing 100 pounds or so, Shoecraft

wore her hair in a bouffant flip and was a bit eccentric in her ways. In fact, some

people around Globe called her just plain crazy. But Billie Shoecraft loved the

canyon lands and the Arizona environment—she adopted them as home after

going there from Indiana in 1948. But Shoecraft was no Barbie doll; she could

ride a horse, handle a rifle, and helped build her own house. Nor was she an

activist or environmentalist, though she loved nature and animals. On women’s

rights, she was characterized as “closer to Phyllis Schlafly than to Betty Frieden.”

But in the 1960s, Shoecraft embarked on a new career. Accidentally doused with

a herbicide spray in June 1969, Shoecraft—then perfectly healthy—became ill

and died from cancer at the age of 53. She attributed her illness to the continuing

spraying of herbicides in the area, and while alive, fought furiously to stop it.

For more than a decade, she and her neighbors took on the U.S. Forest Service

and the herbicide establishment, ultimately bringing a lawsuit against Dow

Chemical and others for their respective roles in the spraying.

Shoecraft had always been suspicious of the spraying in the national forest

near her home. She was not alone. Other neighbors in the rural area also had

experiences with the spraying, some reporting dead birds, sick domestic animals,

damaged plants, and incidents of their homes and family members being

sprayed. In fact, from 1965 to 1969, the U.S. Forest Service sprayed thousands of

acres in the Pinal Mountains area of the Tonto National Forest with various mixtures

of 2,4-D, 2,4,5-T, and 2,4,5-TP or Silvex. A large portion of the product was

supplied by Dow Chemical. In 1966, Shoecraft once asked a local Forest Service

ranger about a dying pine tree near her land, unaware at the time it had been

sprayed. She was told it had a “mysterious disease.” But it was the June 8, 1969

spraying in the Pinal Mountains area that pushed Shoecraft and her neighbors

into an activist mode. Roused in the early morning hours of Sunday June 8 by the

sound of a helicopter approaching her home, Shoecraft rose from her bed and

went outside in her nightgown to have a closer look. Minutes later, when the

copter flew over her house, she was sprinkled with something wet. She then

phoned the local ranger’s office for information, and not getting much help,

decided to jump in her car and try to flag down the pilot. At one point, the pilot

did pass over and hover near Shoecraft, who by then was out of her car and waving

at him from the ground. There, Shoecraft was accidentally drenched again by

the pilot, who blamed the release on a defective spray nozzle. After that incident,

the pilot departed for repairs to his helicopter base. Later that day, however,

the helicopter spraying continued, with several other residents in the area

also reporting being sprayed.

By July 1969, Shoecraft and her neighbors started to press the Forest Service

on the spraying program, calling for among other things, an analysis of all the

hazards to plant and animal life. One Forest Service agent dismissed their reports

of plant and animal damage as “a bunch of malarkey.” The spraying, which

helped clear watersheds of water-clogging vegetation, was also supported by the

giant Salt River Valley Water Users Association. Local ranchers supported it too,

since it made more pasture. But some angry residents said they would shoot

down aircraft flying over their property. Shoecraft and her neighbors had their

land and plants tested and levels of 2,4,5-T and silvex were found. They soon

began compiling documents, talking to the press and petitioning their congressmen

and senators. More than 90 residents had come together to claim damage

to their health, property, and animals. Shoecraft and her allies were not always

well regarded by their neighbors, thought of as “on the fringe” or “crazies”—and

they used protest-theater tactics on occasion, such as a mock funeral at the Forest

Service office—that rubbed some locals the wrong way. Still, newspaper stories

and radio shows began covering the issue. By mid-July 1969, Dow Chemical

had a man go to the scene to assess the public relations situation. He pegged

Shoecraft as the key player.

Shoecraft, meanwhile, had broken out with a blistery rash after the 1969

spraying incidents, and she’d been to local hospitals twice—once for difficulty

breathing and swallowing, and another time for chest pains and pains in her

extremities. Tests found nothing out of the ordinary. Shoecraft had some emotional

strains, and some stress in her marriage at the time, but she was otherwise

a very healthy person with no history of illnesses or health problems. But Shoecraft

began piecing together past incidents of problems in her family—with herself,

her children, family pets, and local plants and animals—correlating those

with previous spraying dates. Some of her neighbors had done the same, finding

what they believed was something more than coincidence. Shoecraft and friends

upped their activism, and they continued to get notice, not all of which was flattering.

Billie Shoecraft had samples of her fatty tissue tested in February 1970 and

learned she was carrying all kinds of chemicals—DDT, lindane, endrin, and chlordane,

among others. Silvex was also in her tissue at 35 ppm, and 2,4-D at 2.5 ppm.

In the spring of 1970, Shoecraft and 20 others in Globe, Arizona filed suit

against Dow and three other chemical companies that made the herbicides

sprayed in the area, as well as the helicopter company that did the spraying, the

state agency that helped finance them, and separately, the federal government’s

U.S. Forest Service program. She also wrote a book on the spraying, called Sue

The Bastards, which was published in Phoenix in 1971. Shoecraft’s activism

grew beyond Globe, and she was soon speaking to other activists. But by then,

Shoecraft’s health was deteriorating, according to records of her California doctor—

she didn’t trust the doctors in Globe. By 1971, Shoecraft was greatly

fatigued, and taken to spending time in a cabin apart from her homeplace,

which she believed contaminated and the source of her woes. By 1972, she was

continuing to loose hair, had numbness on one side of her body, and extended

periods of menstrual bleeding. Similar effects were reported through 1974. But

during the legal proceedings with Dow and others, Shoecraft persisted despite

her failing health, answering lawyers’ questions in at least seven depositions

between the fall of 1970 and the summer of 1974.

By the fall of 1974, the court case against the companies had been transferred

out of state court into federal district court. A case against the federal government

remained on a separate track. Over time, most of the chemical companies

and the helicopter company had settled out of court. Dow, however,

remained. Dow, for its part, hired Dr. Charles Hine, a San Francisco toxicologist

who had served as a pesticide consultant to industry and had done some of the

original research on DBCP. Dow hired Hine to perform a medical examination on

Shoecraft. She had to fly to San Francisco for the session, which did not go well.

She resisted some of the testing, having a pap smear done by another San Francisco

lab rather than Hine. But Hine did get a blood sample from her, which was

sent to Dow’s lab in Midland for analysis. That analysis took more than year to

complete, with no traces of herbicide or dioxin detected.

Through 1975, Shoecraft’s health went into further decline, with continuing

weight loss, depression, fatigue, menstrual bleeding, and difficulty swallowing.

By then she was wearing adult diapers for incontinence. In early 1976, a Phoenix

urologist found some nodules in her breasts and armpit. X-rays from another

doctor showed collapsing vertebrae. By now, Shoecraft, with help from her family,

was traveling to Tijuana for Laetrile to ease her pain. In July 1976, exploratory

surgery by a family doctor found tumors throughout her abdomen, her liver,

and her pelvis. “She’s just full of it,” her doctor was reported to have said, with

no way to operate. Biopsies later showed the cancer in her ovaries. A sample of

fatty tissue taken from Shoecraft and sent to GHT Laboratories in California also

found traces of 2,4-D, 2,4,5- T and silvex . To be close to the Laetrile, Shoecraft

and her husband Willard took up residence in San Diego for a time, then went

back to Globe, where another Dow attorney visited for more fact-finding discovery.

Right before Christmas 1976, the Shoecrafts went to Salem, Oregon for a

doctor who could administer Laetrile. By December 28, Shoecraft was admitted

to Salem Memorial Hospital where on January 6, 1977, she died. Cause of death

was listed as malignant tumor in the ovaries and carcinomatosis—the spread of

cancerous tumors throughout the body.

The litigation that Shoecraft and her neighbors had initiated seven years earlier,

had proceeded. Some new attorneys had been added, and after a time, they

assembled a prospective lineup of scientists to testify to help their case. Scheduled

for a jury trial in October 1980, the case was later postponed until March

1981. Still, the Shoecraft lawyers felt they had a good case. Twenty-one formerly

healthy people had been exposed to a herbicide containing dioxin. Dow had not

done the long-term effects studies on Silvex. Dioxin was a known contaminate

of 2,4,5-T, but Dow continued to claim 2,4,5-T was absolutely non-toxic to

humans or animals. Dioxin was found in the herbicides sprayed in Globe at levels

of least 0.15 ppm. Dow’s warning label on the Silvex sprayed in Globe did not

warn the Forest Service about the danger of spraying it in populated areas. The

Shoecraft plaintiffs were suing for wrongful death, physical injuries, fear of cancer,

and fear of birth defects. Dow’s attorney, for their part, were planning to

defend the company’s products by playing up their importance to agriculture

and minimizing the effects of dioxin exposures. They would admit that both

2,4,5-T and silvex contained trace amounts of dioxin, and like any other compound,

from aspirin to zinc, in sufficient quantities it could produce adverse

health effects. The compounds were well studied, the amounts of contaminant

tiny, and that no more than minor health hazards—covered by the product

labels—were likely involved. As the trial date approached, both sides readied

their final documents. Jerry Sullivan, one of the Shoecraft lawyers, said “no one

is ever gonna have a better chance against Dow than you people.” Just as jury

selection process began, however, Dow made a settlement offer. The Shoecraft

litigants rejected it, and jury selection proceeded. But then, just as the judge was

about to call for the trial to begin, Dow’s attorney telephoned him with another

settlement offer—this time with a bigger pot of money, more, in fact, than the

plaintiffs had asked for. Although there was some disagreement, and those who

felt the case should continue on principle, the Shoecraft litigants settled and the

case did not go to trial. There was no admission of guilt or wrongful activity on

Dow’s part; no formal legal findings. Jerry Sullivan, one of the Shoecraft attorneys,

wanted the trial. “We get doctors to testify. We get epidemiologists to testify.

I had people calling me to testify. And they settle . . . You throw some money

at people and they cave. . . . And Dow started throwing money at them. We

would have had a jury finding of proximate cause, I know that. We would have

had a finding that dioxin causes cancer. . . ” But even Sullivan, in the end, did not

blame the plaintiffs for settling. Some had been through a grueling decade-long

struggle; and a few of them were now in bad personal health and just wanted it

all to be over with. Still, Billie Shoecraft, some observed, would not have settled.

Sources: Adapted from Cathy Trost, Elements of Risk, pp. 95–195, and Carol Van

Strum, A Bitter Fog, pp. 35–46.

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