Freeman v. E. I. du Pont de Nemours & Co. (In re E. I. Du Pont De Nemours & Co. C-8 Personal Injury Litig.)

348 F. Supp. 3d 680
CourtDistrict Court, S.D. Ohio
DecidedMay 12, 2016
DocketCivil Action 2:13-md-2433
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 348 F. Supp. 3d 680 (Freeman v. E. I. du Pont de Nemours & Co. (In re E. I. Du Pont De Nemours & Co. C-8 Personal Injury Litig.)) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, S.D. Ohio primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Freeman v. E. I. du Pont de Nemours & Co. (In re E. I. Du Pont De Nemours & Co. C-8 Personal Injury Litig.), 348 F. Supp. 3d 680 (S.D. Ohio 2016).

Opinion

EDMUND A. SARGUS, JR., CHIEF UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

This matter is before the Court on Plaintiff's Motion for the Partial Exclusion of Opinions and Testimony of Defendant's Experts Related to General Causation ("Motion Regarding General Causation") (ECF No. 4322), Plaintiff's Motion for Partial Exclusion *683of Opinions and Testimony of Defendant's Experts Related to Specific Causation ("Motion Regarding Specific Causation") (ECF No. 4323), Defendant's Memorandum in Opposition to Plaintiff's Motions (ECF No. 4336), and Plaintiff's Replies in Support of his Motions (ECF Nos. 4342, 4343). For the reasons that follow, the Court GRANTS IN PART AND DENIES IN PART Plaintiff's Motions.

I.

Plaintiff David Freeman's trial is scheduled for May 31, 2016, as the second bellwether trial of the over 3500 cases that make up this multidistrict litigation ("MDL"). The Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation describes the cases in its Transfer Order as follows:

All the actions are personal injury or wrongful death actions arising out of plaintiffs' alleged ingestion of drinking water contaminated with a chemical, C-8 (also known as perfluorooctoanoic acid (PFOA) or ammonium perfluorooctanoate (APFO) ), discharged from [Defendant E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company's ("DuPont") ] Washington Works Plant near Parkersburg, West Virginia. All of the plaintiffs in this litigation allege that they suffer or suffered from one or more of six diseases identified as potentially linked to C-8 exposure by a study conducted as part of a 2005 settlement ["Leach Settlement Agreement" or "Contract"] between DuPont and a class of approximately 80,000 persons residing in six water districts allegedly contaminated by C-8 from the Washington Works Plant. See Leach v. E. I. Du Pont de Nemours & Co. , No. 01-C-608 (W. Va. Cir. Ct. [ (Wood County Aug. 31, 2001), ("Leach Case") ].

(Transfer Order at 1, ECF No. 1.) DuPont utilized C-8 as a manufacturing aid in the production of Teflon™.

A. The Leach Case

As indicated by the Judicial Panel in its Transfer Order, the cases that make up this MDL are a subset of cases that originated in the Leach Case. The Leach Case was brought by a group of individuals who alleged a variety of claims under West Virginia common law tort theories for equitable, injunctive, and declaratory relief, along with compensatory and punitive damages, as a result of alleged drinking water contamination. In the Leach Settlement Agreement, the parties fashioned a unique procedure to determine whether the approximately 80,000 members of the class ("Leach Class") would be permitted to file actions against DuPont based on any of the human diseases they believed had been caused by their exposure to C-8 discharged from DuPont's Washington Works plant. (Leach Settlement Agreement ("S.A."), ECF No. 820-8.)

The procedure required DuPont and the representatives of the Leach Class to jointly select three completely independent, mutually-agreeable, appropriately credentialed, epidemiologists ("Science Panel") to study whether there is a connection between C-8 and human disease among the Leach Class. (S.A. at §§ 12.2.1, 12.2.2.) Pursuant to the agreed procedure the parties set forth in the Leach Settlement Agreement, the Science Panel established protocols and studied C-8's connection to numerous human diseases among the Leach Class, examining health data and blood samples from approximately 69,000 individuals exposed to C-8 in the communities served by the water districts whose water had been contaminated with C-8 released from DuPont's Washington Works plant. (http://www.c8sciencepanel.org/c8health.html ) ("The Science Panel, as part *684of the Community Study, received the anonymised and non-identifiable health data collected by Brookmar [in the C-8 Health Project] to examine and analyze as part of its work."). DuPont paid the entire cost of the study which was more than $20 million dollars. (S.A. § 9.1.)

The Leach Settlement Agreement provided that the conclusions of the Science Panel's study would be issued in either a "Probable Link Finding" or a "No Probable Link Finding" for each human disease the Panel studied. (S.A. § 12.2.3.) "[T]he Probable Link reports [are] presented in detail in scientific articles (follow link [on the C-8 Science Panel website to the] Study Publications." (http://www.c8sciencepanel.org/study.html.)

The Science Panel engaged in its work for seven years and in 2011 and 2012 issued Probable Link Findings for six human diseases, including testicular cancer, ("Linked Diseases") and No Probable Link Findings for over forty human diseases. The Leach Settlement Agreement defines "Probable Link" as follows:

"Probable Link" shall mean that based upon the weight of the available scientific evidence, it is more likely than not that there is a link between exposure to C-8 and a particular Human Disease among Class Members.

(S.A. § 1.49.)

Because the Science Panel delivered Probable Link Findings for the six Linked Diseases, the Leach Settlement Agreement permits the individual class members to pursue their claims "for personal injury and wrongful death, including but not limited to any claims for injunctive relief and special, general and punitive and any other damages whatsoever associated with such claims, that ... relate to exposure to C-8 of Class Members" and DuPont agreed not to contest general causation in those actions . (S.A. § 3.3.) DuPont retained the right to contest specific causation and to assert any other defenses not barred by the Leach Settlement Agreement. (S.A. § 3.3.)

The parties defined general and specific causation as follows:

"General Causation" shall mean that it is probable that exposure to C-8 is capable of causing a particular Human Disease.
....
"Specific Causation" shall mean that it is probable that exposure to C-8 caused a particular Human Disease in a specific individual.

(S.A. §§ 1.25, 1.60.)

After the Science Panel delivered its Findings, the members of the Leach class whose claims are based on any disease for which a No Probable Link Finding was issued were forever barred from bringing their suits against DuPont. (S.A. § 3.3.) The individuals who suffered from one or more of the Linked Diseases began to file cases in West Virginia and Ohio. DuPont moved the United States Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation for centralization of these individual actions pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1407.

The Judicial Panel granted DuPont's request and on April 9, 2013, it transferred the centralized action to this Court. Ultimately, 3,542 cases were filed in or transferred to this Court as part of this MDL. Through a negotiated process, the parties chose, and this Court approved, five plaintiffs whose cases would serve as bellwether trials.

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Bluebook (online)
348 F. Supp. 3d 680, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/freeman-v-e-i-du-pont-de-nemours-co-in-re-e-i-du-pont-de-nemours-ohsd-2016.