First, lawyer Amiel Gross defended plastics company Saint-Gobain against lawsuits related to the company’s widespread pollution of toxic chemicals in Vermont and other states.
Second, Gross raised concerns that similar pollution could be happening elsewhere.
Third, the company fired him.
Gross contends his firing in October 2020 was retaliation for his decision to raise alarm bells, and this week he filed a complaint with the U.S. Occupational Safety & Health Administration, alleging unlawful termination. He was formerly based at the headquarters of Saint-Gobain North America in Malvern, Pennsylvania, just west of Philadelphia.
In his complaint, Gross said that in March 2019 he raised concerns that PFOA, a toxic chemical used in the company’s manufacturing process, could be polluting the drinking water supply of people who live near company factories around the country.
Tom Kinisky, then CEO of Saint-Gobain North America, instructed him to look away, Gross alleges.
“Don’t do that. You know why? If you look, you will find it. If you don’t, you can say you didn’t know,” Kinisky told him, Gross alleges in his complaint. Carol Gray, one of Gross’s superiors, was also present for the meeting and remained silent, Gross contends.
Lia LoBello, a spokesperson for Saint-Gobain, called the claims “baseless” and said the company will “vigorously defend” itself.
“The conversation Mr. Gross alleges with former CEO Tom Kinisky never happened,” she said in a statement.
She also said Gross did not use multiple channels that were available for reporting his concerns, and did not directly tell current CEO Mark Rayfield and other senior leaders.
Sounding the alarm
With annual revenue of $44.2 billion, Saint-Gobain, based in Paris, France, is one of the largest companies in the world.
Gross is represented by attorney Jeanne Christensen with Wigdor LLP, a law firm that has also represented victims of sexual assault against film giant Harvey Weinstein and victims of harassment against Fox News.
PFOA, or perfluorooctanoic acid, is a compound that’s part of a chemical class called PFAS, or perfluoroalkyl substances. PFOA is commonly used in products resistant to water and staining, such as nonstick cookware. It can travel through the air and contaminate water far from its original source.
The chemical doesn’t break down easily, sometimes existing in the human body for up to eight years. It can cause thyroid and kidney cancers, heighten cholesterol levels, and pose developmental dangers for young children.
Gross was Saint-Gobain’s main attorney in defending against class-action lawsuits surrounding the pollution in the Bennington area, and in New York and New Hampshire. When witnesses provided testimony about other sites not included in that litigation, he said, he sounded the alarm to his superiors.
“Because of his day-to-day involvement in the litigation and knowledge about the information being developed, Mr. Gross understood the massive potential liability exposure faced by Saint-Gobain, as well as the potential for environmental and community exposure to PFOA in drinking water,” the complaint said.
The complaint alleges that Saint-Gobain is aware that a facility in Wayne, New Jersey, “presents a substantial, ongoing risk of PFOA contamination of nearby private drinking water wells, and yet willfully continues to take no meaningful action to investigate the problem.”
Despite this knowledge, the complaint said, the company has consistently maintained to “shareholders, investors, financial analysts, ratings agencies and the global market” that its PFOA exposure and environmental impact is contained to three sites — in the Bennington area, in Hoosick Falls, New York, and in Merrimack, New Hampshire.
Saint-Gobain had “almost certain” knowledge about contamination in Hoosick Falls in 2003, according to the complaint, but didn’t investigate or act on that knowledge until 2015, when it was “essentially forced” to do so. That lack of action exposed residents to toxic contamination for more than 10 years.
10 or more other sites
Despite his instructions not to investigate whether other sites might be contaminated, Gross did so, saying he “felt compelled by a moral duty.” He says he found that at least 10 current and former sites operated by Saint-Gobain had used PFOA in their products.
In Wayne, New Jersey, he says, he found that an employee responsible for maintaining environmental health and safety did not know airborne PFOA could contaminate groundwater, and on-site monitoring wells contained “extremely high readings” of PFOA. A residential neighborhood appeared to be at risk of contamination a half-mile away.
He says he also found high readings onsite in New Haven, Connecticut. While that site did not pose the same risk to residential drinking water, a nearby waterway contained high levels of PFOA.
In Mantua, Ohio, a municipal drinking water source that served 1,200 residents was located “approximately 500 feet to 1,000 feet downgradient from the site,” Gross says.
He sent his findings to Gray and Brett Sleksky, an in-house environmental lawyer. Soon, a municipal water authority in New Jersey was looking into contamination. Saint-Gobain investigated contamination at several abutting properties but, according to the complaint, did not expedite testing for other properties farther away.
LoBello said remediation has been in progress for years and documents, of which Gross was aware, “show no danger to residential wells and that PFAS around the site poses no danger to humans.”
Whistleblower argument
In continuing exchanges with Gray, Gross says, he predicted he would be taking on more PFOA litigation because of the multiple other sites that could be polluted. That’s when Gray asked him “how long he thought it would take to find a replacement for him if he were to leave suddenly,” Gross said.
Gray asked Gross to train another attorney in PFOA litigation in the spring of 2020, the complaint says. In October, the head of business compliance and a human resources representative told him he was under investigation for “insubordination,” and he was asked about “certain disparaging words that he allegedly used regarding another employee.” Later that day, he was fired.
Gross claims he faced harassment from Saint-Gobain employees after he was fired, including threats to report him to law enforcement.
LoBello said Gross was terminated “following an investigation for violating company policies, including our harassment prevention policy, among others. In his suit, Mr. Gross makes many false allegations.”
The complaint argues that Gross’s activities were protected by the whistleblower provision of the U.S. Department of Labor’s Safe Drinking Water Act. It says he’s “suffered the loss of wages, benefits and additional amounts of money he would have received if he had not been subjected to said treatment.”
“Employees that do the right thing should be rewarded — not discarded and retaliated against,” said Christensen, Gross’s attorney. “Our client did not want to be part of the PFOA legacy problem. He tried to be part of the solution. Sadly, there is nothing about Saint-Gobain’s treatment of Mr. Gross that suggests it cared about anything except the bottom line.”
