Initial oral arguments were heard Aug. 21 at the Tokyo District Court in a lawsuit seeking 126 million yen ($1.3 million) in compensation from Tokyo Electric Power Co. over the suicide of a Fukushima dairy farmer.
Initial oral arguments were heard Aug. 21 at the Tokyo District Court in a lawsuit seeking 126 million yen ($1.3 million) in compensation from Tokyo Electric Power Co. over the suicide of a Fukushima dairy farmer.
The lawsuit was filed by the farmer's widow, Vanessa Kanno, and the couple's two sons. It argues that the accident at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant led to the suicide of Shigekiyo Kanno, a 54-year-old farmer from the city of Soma, in Fukushima Prefecture. Kanno hanged himself about three months after the reactor meltdowns triggered by the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami disaster.
Lawyers for TEPCO asked that the lawsuit be thrown out, claiming the utility was not responsible for providing compensation in this case as the reasons behind the suicide laid totally with Kanno.
Kanno raised about 40 head of cattle. Before committing suicide, he wrote on the wall of his compost shed in chalk, "If it wasn't for the nuclear power plant."
In documents submitted to the court, TEPCO argued that Kanno, without telling neighbors, went to the Philippines, where his wife was from and where she had evacuated to after the nuclear accident. The utility further argued that because there was no one to care for the cattle owned by Kanno and because no one could contact Kanno, a neighboring farmer gave the cattle to another ranch.
TEPCO argued that after Kanno returned to Japan, he found he could not continue his dairy farm and that was the reason he killed himself.
At a news conference after the first day's arguments, Vanessa Kanno said: "Our lives have become much more difficult after the death of my husband. I want them to reach a verdict soon."
The plaintiffs plan to tell the court how Kanno worried about how to continue his farm because managing it became much more difficult after the nuclear accident.