KBR, a global technology, engineering, procurement and construction company, today announced that it has won its appeal in the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit over an $81 million judgment against the company.

The Court of Appeals ruled in KBR's favour and vacated and reversed the earlier judgment, the company said.

The now-vacated judgment had been entered by a federal magistrate judge in Oregon in favour of a group of Oregon national guardsmen who alleged they were exposed to Iraqi-supplied sodium dichromate in 2003 during the Iraq war when deployed by the US Army to provide force protection at a water treatment plant in Iraq.

The Court of Appeals held that KBR was not subject to personal jurisdiction in Oregon, thus agreeing with what KBR had contended years earlier at the beginning of the lawsuit. As a result, the Court of Appeals reversed the $81 million judgment in its entirety, the company said.

KBR's executive vice president and general counsel Eileen Akerson said: "This ruling is another major step in resolving the few remaining legacy tort claims related to KBR's work supporting the US military in Iraq. We look forward to bringing closure to all of those matters."

Approximately 130 other plaintiffs brought a similar lawsuit in federal court in Houston, Texas. The federal judge in the Texas case granted summary judgment on the merits in favour of KBR with respect to all of plaintiffs' claims except for their claim for intentional infliction of emotional distress, it said. - TradeArabia News Service