Plaintiffs lawyer Richard Alexander portrayed IBM as aware of its employees'

illnesses, but lacked the decency to share that information with the workers.
Displaying an enlarged photocopy of an IBM health questionnaire filled out by one
of the plaintiffs, he charged, "This chart in 1976 confirms that IBM knew that
James Moore reported complaints consistent with chemical poisoning!" Alexander
ticked off a list of symptoms cited by Moore on the questionnaire. They ranged
from headaches to blackout and hot flash—"all signs," Alexander asserted, "of
systemic chemical poisoning." Soon after, defense lawyer Robert Weber took his
turn. His rebuttal was all the more devastating for the low-key manner in which he
delivered it. Weber returned to Moore's health questionnaire and pointed out pages
that Alexander hadn't mentioned. There, in giant magnifications of Moore's
handwriting, were his explanations of the symptoms. The headaches? They
occurred "2-3 times a year." The hot flash? That came "when I got the tetanus shot
in 1956"—ten years before Moore started working for IBM. The blackout? It, too,
had occurred years before Moore joined IBM. Nothing, in short, was what it had
seemed on first glance. "So much for that," said the defense lawyer.