CAPE TOWN, South Africa — An appeal hearing opened Monday in South Africa on whether a subsidiary of British-based mining company Anglo American PLC was responsible for lead poisoning over decades that affected around 140,000 people in Zambia.

The class action by women and children asks South Africa’s Supreme Court of Appeal to overturn a judgment by a lower court that dismissed their case against Anglo American South Africa.

They allege that a mine in the Zambian city of Kabwe — which Anglo American South Africa was involved with from 1925 to 1974 — “poisoned generations of local people,” according to a statement from their lawyers.

The lower court in Johannesburg dismissed their case in 2023, ruling that there was a lack of initial evidence that they had been poisoned. It called their

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