PHILADELPHIA (AP) - David Berger, a class-action lawsuit pioneer who won major cases in the Three Mile Island nuclear accident as well as disputes with oil companies, has died. He was 94.
Berger died Thursday at a hospital in West Palm Beach, Fla., from complications of pneumonia, said one of his sons, Jonathan Berger.
In 1971, he filed a nationwide class-action suit against all major oil companies, demanding that service station operators get the right to sell any brand of gasoline. In a 1984 settlement, his 50,000 clients won that right along with $37 million in damages.
'He was a bright, bright lawyer,' said Richard A. Sprague, a prominent Philadelphia criminal attorney who practiced with Berger in the 1970s. 'The world didn't realize the potential of class-action litigation until Dave Berger came along.'
He helped win $25 million for people who lived near the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant following the partial meltdown at the plant in March 1979. He also won $5 million for a public health fund to study the effects of low-level radiation exposure they had experienced.
'In all these cases, we were always up against the toughest, best and richest lawyers in the country,' Berger said in a 1985 interview with The Associated Press. 'It was a forced-march, scorched-earth battle all the way.'
As Philadelphia's city solicitor, he helped set up the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transit Authority. In 1969, he ran as a Democrat for district attorney and lost to current U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa.
'He was a giant in his field,' said Gov. Ed Rendell, a former Philadelphia mayor. 'He had a deep and abiding passion about making Philadelphia better.'
He retired in 2004, when he began to suffer early stages of Alzheimer's disease.
In addition to his son Jonathan, Berger is survived by another son, Daniel, two brothers and two grandchildren.
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