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Sullivan v. Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics Corporation

United States District Court for the District of Vermont
2019 WL 8272995 (2019)

Written by Tiffany Hester, JD

Facts

Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics (Saint-Gobain) (defendant) operated a plant in Bennington, Vermont, that released perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) into the air. Testing revealed extremely elevated PFOA levels in most private wells within a 20-square-mile area designated as the contamination zone. Several residents (plaintiffs) in the contamination zone who tested positive for elevated PFOA blood levels hired experienced environmental lawyers to sue Saint-Gobain. The residents had no symptoms and did not seek personal-injury damages; instead, they sought court-supervised medical testing to monitor for certain cancers associated with PFOA exposure. The residents claimed that approximately 8,000 other individuals were potentially exposed and sought class certification, proposing a class consisting of people who lived in the contamination zone, consumed PFOA-contaminated water, and tested positive for elevated PFOA blood levels but lacked illness symptoms. Saint-Gobain opposed class certification, arguing that a class action would not adequately protect the interests of those who developed illnesses later because claim preclusion would bar future personal-injury damages.

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Claim preclusionDoctrine of res judicata that prohibits the same parties from relitigating the same cause of action after there has been a final judgment on the merits.
Class ActionA suit brought by one or more individuals, acting as representative parties, on behalf of all members of a much larger group, called a class. A class is normally the plaintiff in a case, but defendant class actions are permitted.
Injunctive ReliefAn equitable remedy whereby the court does not order damages but instead instructs a party to do something or refrain from doing something.
Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23(a)A rule establishing the prerequisites for certifying a class. The class may be certified if the following requirements are met: (1) the class members are too numerous to make joinder practicable, (2) class members’ claims contain common questions of law or fact, (3) the named representative's claims or defenses are typical of the class members’ claims or defenses, and (4) the representative party will fairly and adequately protect the class members’ interests.
Fed. R. Civ. P. 23(b)(2)A rule of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure allowing a class action to be maintained if the prerequisites of Rule 23(a) are met and the defendant’s alleged misconduct applies generally to the entire class so that injunctive or declaratory relief is appropriate.
Medical-Monitoring DamagesDamages to compensate for the costs of ongoing medical monitoring reasonably necessary to detect latent injury or disease resulting from another’s tortious conduct (often seen in cases involving toxic exposure).
Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23(b) Types of Class ActionsThere are three types of class actions in Rule 23(b): first, 23(b)(1) “prejudice class actions” for cases in which an individual action could create prejudice that a mandatory class action would avoid; second, 23(b)(2) “injunctive/declarative relief class actions” in which only injunctive or declaratory relief is sought; and third, “damages class actions” in which damages are sought. Different notice rules apply to the different types of class actions, and only putative class members of 23(b)(3) classes may “opt out” of the class action and pursue individual claims.

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