"Japan court orders compensation to 128 unrecognized Minamata victims", 28 September 2023

A Japanese district court ordered the state and others to pay a total of 350 million yen ($2.3 million) in damages to 128 unrecognized sufferers of the Minamata mercury-poisoning disease, making it the first such ruling among similar lawsuits filed nationwide over the country's redress measure.

The Osaka District Court recognized that all of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, who were not eligible for relief payments under a special law that went into force in 2009, were victims of Minamata disease, with their lawyers welcoming the judgment as a "complete victory."

The disease, formally acknowledged by local health authorities in 1956, has been traced to mercury-tainted water dumped into the sea by a Chisso Corp. chemical plant in Minamata in Kumamoto Prefecture, southwestern Japan.

Relief efforts have continued since the illness ... but legal battles have continued for sufferers who have been left out of the measures.

In the lawsuit filed with the Osaka District Court, the plaintiffs sought a total of 576 million yen in damages against the state, Kumamoto Prefecture and Chisso, asserting that judging the eligibility of the redress measures based on an individual's residential areas and age was unjust...

Similar lawsuits are under way in Tokyo, Niigata, and Kumamoto district courts. More than 1,700 plaintiffs are involved in the four lawsuits, but pundits say there could be more victims...