In Illinois, employees began asking for compensation for their medical and dental bills as early as 1927 but were refused by management. The demand for money by sick and dying former employees continued into the mid-1930s before a suit was brought before the Illinois Industrial Commission (IIC). In 1937, five women found attorney Leonard Grossman who would represent them in front of the commission. Grossman took the case without receiving pay as the women were too poor due to inability to work. The case was handled at Catherine Donahue’s home, a woman involved who was too sick to travel. In the spring of 1938 the IIC ruled in favor of the women, but by then, Radium Dial had closed and moved to New York, and the IIC refused to cross state boundaries for the women’s payout. The IIC did retain a $10,000 deposit left by Radium Dial when it disclosed to the IIC that they could not find any insurance to cover the cost of indemnifying the company against employee suits. The attorney representing the interests of Radium Dial appealed hoping to get the verdict overturned. Radium Dial appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court and on October 23, 1939, the court decided not to hear the appeal, and the lower ruling was upheld. Some of the women received no payout and by the time the matter was officially settled by the supreme court, Catherine Donahue was dead.[24]
And the company was probably like “well how could we have known?” and probably faced zero consequences in true American fashion.
Pretty much