In re Hanford Nuclear Reservation Litigation

This was a class-action tort suit filed by a group of thousands of individuals who claimed damages from E.I. DuPont and other corporations who operated the Hanford Nuclear Reservation due to exposure to radioactive emissions from the Hanford Reservation. At issue was the type of causation that the plaintiffs must establish to sustain their claims. The trial court had dismissed the plaintiffs’ claims for failing to establish causation related to the injuries. Specifically, the trial court required the plaintiffs to demonstrate individualized injuries caused by the Hanford Reservation emissions, which is an individual-causation or specific-causation connection. The plaintiffs had previously provided information to establish generic or general causation, which is evidence that the dangerous substance was capable of causing the harm in question. In this case, the dangerous substance was radioactive iodine, which has been proven to cause thyroid cancer or hyperthyroidism. The plaintiffs had established that matter but were found to have failed to connect their exposure to radioactive iodine to the plaintiffs’ claimed injuries. The plaintiffs appealed, alleging that the court erred in requiring such individual causation at the discovery phase of the proceeding and that plaintiffs were then required to show only generic causation, which the plaintiffs had met by establishing that the Hanford Reservation emissions were capable of causing the alleged harm.