Earlier this week the Eleventh Circuit issued a published decision in Pinares v. United Technology Corporation, No. 18-15104, slip op. (11th Cir. Aug. 31, 2020), affirming the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida’s grant of summary judgment in favor of Pratt & Whitney, dismissing the plaintiffs’ claims as time-barred. In doing so, the Court held that the personal injury tolling provision in the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (“CERCLA”) does not apply to public liability actions brought pursuant to the Price-Anderson Act (“PAA”) or to claims styled under state law based on injuries from radiation exposure. Thus, the lawsuit pursued by Joselyn and Steve Santiago alleging that Pratt & Whitney was liable for their deceased daughter Cynthia Santiago’s cancer was time barred. Read More »

Share | Email| Comments|  Topics: Cancer, CERCLA, Contamination, Discovery Rule, Eleventh Circuit, Florida, Negligence, Price-Anderson Act, Statute of Limitations, Superfund, Toxic Torts, Trespass

On January 15, 2020, Judge Gerald J. Pappert of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania dismissed two groups of private plaintiffs’ claims against the United States Navy regarding perfluorocarbon contamination, PFOS and PFOA, in drinking water supplies around former Navy facilities in Bucks and Montgomery Counties, Pennsylvania. Giovanni v. U.S. Dept. of Navy, No. 16-4873, 17-765, -- F.Supp.3d --, 2020 WL 224683 (E.D. Pa. Jan. 15, 2020). Read More »

Share | Email| Comments|  Topics: Cancer, CERCLA, Class Actions, Contamination, Damages, HSCA, Medical Monitoring, Pennsylvania, PFAS, Superfund, Third Circuit, Toxic Torts

In 2014, the Town of Westport, Massachusetts (Westport) brought suit against Monsanto Company (Monsanto) seeking to recover costs it had and would incur in remediating PCB-containing caulk used in the construction of the Westport Middle School in 1969.  Through a series of pretrial motions, the district court eventually dismissed all claims against Monsanto and its related entities, and in the recent decision of Town of Westport v. Monsanto, No. 17-1461, 2017 U.S. App. LEXIS 24827 (1st Cir. Dec. 8, 2017), the First Circuit affirmed the district court’s actions, dealing a blow to purchasers of PCB-containing building materials seeking similar recoveries.  Read More »

Share | Email| Comments|  Topics: Building Materials, Cancer, First Circuit, PCBs, Property Damage, Property Value, Real Estate, Remediation, Trespass

In 2014, we covered the United States Supreme Court’s decision in CTS Corp. v. Waldburger et al., 134 S. Ct. 2175 (June 9, 2014).  In Waldburger, the Court overturned a decision by the Fourth Circuit, and held that while CERCLA preempts state statutes of limitations in toxic tort personal injury and property damage actions, it does not preempt state statutes of repose, like the North Carolina statute of repose at issue, from barring similar actions.    Last week, in Stahle v. CTS Corp., No. 15-1001 (March 2, 2016), the Fourth Circuit addressed an even more basic question, whether the statute of repose at issue in Waldburger is even applicable in such cases.  Read More »

Share | Email| Comments|  Topics: Cancer, Case Update, Contamination, Eleventh Circuit, Fourth Circuit, North Carolina, Preemption, Statute of Limitations, Statute of Repose, Toxic Torts

Last week, the Court of Appeals of New York (the state’s highest court) definitively ruled that under New York law, a plaintiff cannot assert an independent cause of action for medical monitoring.  Rather, medical monitoring in New York is only available as an element of consequential damages for another tort where a plaintiff has suffered physical injury or property damage. Read More »

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Last Friday, the Sixth Circuit upheld a $250,000 sanction award levied against the attorneys representing a large group of plaintiffs in an Ohio federal environmental contamination suit, on the basis that plaintiffs’ medical monitoring claims were objectively unreasonable.   The case – Baker et al. v. Chevron U.S.A., Inc. et al., Nos. 11-4369, 12-3995 (6th Cir., Aug. 2, 2013) – was on appeal from the Southern District of Ohio, which had granted Chevron’s motion for sanctions after plaintiffs had failed to meet the legal and factual burdens for establishing a medical monitoring claim under Ohio law.  Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 11 (“Rule 11”) provides litigants with a mechanism to attack claims that are “not well grounded in fact . . . [and/or] not warranted by existing law or a good faith argument for extension, modification, or reversal of existing law.”  Generally, Rule 11 sanctions are limited to those circumstances where an attorney’s conduct was unreasonable under the circumstances.  Read More »

Share | Email| Comments|  Topics: Cancer, Causation, Class Actions, Decisions of Note, Federal Procedure, Medical Monitoring, Sixth Circuit, Toxic Torts

Back in October, we reported on a Complaint filed in California, in the case of Center for Community Action & Environmental Justice v. Union Pacific Corporation, No. CV11-8609 (C.D. Cal.) that contended that particulate matter in diesel fuel combustion exhaust is a hazardous waste which is “disposed of” when emitted and therefore is subject to the requirements of Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA).  Creative as it might have been, on a Motion to Dismiss, the Honorable S. James Otero threw out the case without leave to amend. Read More »

Share | Email| Comments|  Topics: Air, Cancer, Case Update, Cases to Watch, Clean Air Act, Emissions, RCRA, Toxic Torts, Waste

Plaintiffs continue to struggle in their attempts to obtain class certification in toxic tort cases, the most recent example being the May 14, 2012 decision in Earley v. Village of Crestwood, No. 09-CH-32969 (Cook County Ill).   In Earley, Plaintiffs brought suit ostensibly on behalf of the residents of Crestwood Village, contending that the municipality had been providing them with tap  water from a contaminated well for some twenty plus years.  In an opinion that does not even reach three pages in length, the trial court made quick work of their class action claims, focusing on proximate cause.  Relying on Smith v. Illinois Central RR, 223 Ill, 2d 441 (2006), which rejected class certification in mass toxic torts because of the complex and individual nature of establishing that the alleged contamination proximately caused each class members’ alleged injuries, the trial judge in Earley found that the necessity for each plaintiff “to establish the amount and type of their damages proximately caused by Defendants” would “overwhelm any common issues,” thus dooming certification.

Share | Email| Comments|  Topics: Cancer, Class Actions, Illinois, Toxic Torts, Water

On October 18, the Natural Resources Defense Council filed a lawsuit in California contending that particulate matter in diesel fuel combustion exhaust is a hazardous waste and therefore subject to the requirements of Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA).  If the Court agrees, then the world of environmental law and regulation is likely to be turned upside down. Read More »

Share | Email| Comments|  Topics: Air, Cancer, Cases to Watch, Combustion, Emissions, Railroad, RCRA, Waste