Vigneron 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 650
CourtDistrict Court, S.D. Ohio
DecidedOctober 24, 2016
DocketCivil Action 2:13-md-2433
StatusPublished

This text of 348 F. Supp. 3d 650 (Vigneron 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
Vigneron 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 650 (S.D. Ohio 2016).

Opinion

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

This case is before the Court on two matters:

(1) Defendant's Motion to Exclude the Opinions and Testimony of Specific Causation Expert Dr. Robert Bahnson (ECF No. 4657), Plaintiff's Memorandum in Opposition to Defendant's Motion Regarding Dr. Bahnson (ECF No. 4685), and Defendant's Reply in Support of its Motion Regarding Dr. Bahnson (ECF No. 4700), and

(2) Plaintiff's Motion to Partially Exclude the Opinions and Testimony of Defense Specific Causation Rebuttal Expert Dr. Tony Luongo (ECF No. 4649), Defendant's Memorandum in Opposition to Plaintiff's Motion Regarding Dr. Luongo (ECF No. 4683), and Plaintiff's Reply in Support of his Motion Regarding Dr. Luongo (ECF No. 4696).

For the reasons set forth below, the Court GRANTS IN PART AND DENIES IN PART Defendant's Motion Regarding Dr. Bahnson, and GRANTS IN PART AND DENIES AS MOOT IN PART Plaintiffs' Motion Regarding Dr. Luongo.

I.

Plaintiff Kenneth Vigneron, Sr.'s trial is scheduled for November 14, 2016, as the first non-bellwether trial of the over 3500 cases filed against Defendant E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company's ("DuPont") 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 DuPont's 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 ("Linked Diseases") 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 ("Leach Class") 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 / This MDL

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, as a result of alleged drinking water contamination. In the Leach Settlement Agreement, the parties fashioned a unique procedure to determine whether the 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 the C-8 discharged from DuPont's Washington Works plant. (Leach Settlement Agreement ("S.A."), ECF No. 820-8.)

*656The 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. §§ 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. (S.A. §§ 12.2.2, 12.2.3.) The Science Panel examined health data and blood samples collected through the C-8 Health Project from approximately 69,000 potential members of the Leach Class. (http://www.c8sciencepanel.org/c8health.html) ("The Science Panel, as part of 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 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/studv.html.) 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.)

The Probable Link and No Probable Link Findings apply to the members of the Leach Class, which is defined as a group of individuals who, "for the period of at least one year," has "consumed drinking water containing .05 ppb or greater of C-8 attributable to releases from [DuPont's] Washington Works" plant from any of the "six specified Public Water Districts" or any of the Covered Private Sources named in the Leach Settlement Agreement. (S.A. § 2.1.1.)

Until the Science Panel reached its conclusions and issued its Findings, the claims of the Leach Class members were stayed for the seven years in which the Science Panel engaged in its work. In 2011 and 2012 the Science Panel issued Probable Link Findings for the Linked Diseases, which include testicular cancer, and No Probable Link Findings for over forty human diseases.

The benefit the Leach Class received for agreeing to this seven year stay in their litigation was DuPont's agreement not to contest the issue of general causation for any Linked Disease. The Contract in relevant part provides:

Upon delivery of any Probable Link Finding to the Administrator, Defendant agrees that, in any personal injury or wrongful death action brought by, on behalf of, or otherwise pertaining to a Class Member, Defendant will not contest the issue of General Causation between C-8 and any Human Disease(s) as to which a Probable Link Finding has been delivered , but reserves the right to contest Specific Causation and damages as to any individual Class Member or plaintiff and to assert any other defenses not barred by this Agreement.

*657(S.A. § 3.3) ("conditional release and covenant not to sue" section).

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.)

In other words, the benefit the Leach

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
348 F. Supp. 3d 650, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/vigneron-v-ei-du-pont-de-nemours-co-in-re-ei-du-pont-de-nemours-ohsd-2016.