"Back in 1989, I had a number of friends call me and say their son or daughter had come in from the oil spill cleanup on a break and their urine was black," Ott said. "And what concerns me is every year since the spill I have been getting calls from people, and they all have this breathing you can hear, and they all say they're sick, and they say, 'You know, I think it's from the work I did on the oil spill.' "

After talking to more than a dozen such people, Ott began to suspect it was no coincidence that all of them were sick. She flew to Texas to meet with Dr. William Rea, who had treated many former cleanup workers and believed many of them were suffering the cumulative effects of chemical exposure to oil and solvents . Eventually, Ott contacted Masry and Schneider and persuaded them to try to find more injured workers and file lawsuits on their behalf.

Few of the previous lawsuits filed against Exxon ever went anywhere, including suits filed by LaJoie and Lowe, which were dismissed before going to trial. Experts like Rea were countered by medical experts put forward by Exxon, who said workers suffered no significant medical damage, or if they did, it could have come from anything.

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