We Track PFAS Litigation So You Don’t Have To

and we're going to talk about it again. The chemicals known as pfasts are going to be a big, big story in twenty twenty for those of you a little behind. These are the nonstick chemicals that are used in a variety of products, from pots and pans to firefighting foam, and they unfortunately almost never biodegrade, which means they just

stick around in the environment and into human bodies. There's a ton of litigation over these chemicals from nearly every conceivable angle, and we're going to break all that legal action down for you, or at least try to win with me. Here today to take on this task are Ellen Gilmer and Pat Rizzuto. So bea character and will be joining us a little bit later. So Ellen, let's start with you. You have a case with the very catchy title of n ray Ei DuPont de Nimors and

Company C eight Personal injury litigation. So that just really that's the sort of household name right there. Yeah, it's really spicy stuff. What So Okay, what is this case? It's in Ohio? But who are the parties? What are the stakes here? So this is a set of cases that are all rolled together and what's called multi district litigation.

Multi district litigation, that's right. So in an MDL, for short, a court will roll together a whole bunch of cases that are similar, just so it's a little bit easier to sort through them. Yeah. So this MDL is really interesting because it stems all the way back to litigation that was launched by Rob Blot, which a lot of people who are tracking p Fast know he is somebody. He is the lawyer from Ohio who's featured the recent

movie Dark Waters. He's also the lawyer who many Press Pavillion listeners may know as a guest on the show who spoke with us recently. And yes, as you mentioned, he was portrayed in the movie Dark Waters by Mark Ruffalo. So Rob a Lot and other lawyers worked on this case on a set of cases like twenty years ago. The defendant here is DuPont and it's spinoff Camores, right, And we're actually going to get to the relationship between DuPont and Camores in a little bit, so stay tuned

for that. But it sounds like this is you know, dozens and dozens or maybe hundreds of people who are suing DuPont and Caimores because they say this p fast chemicals harm them, poison them, I guess. And this is all wrapped up in one court in Ohio, right right, So but a little bit of background that's important. What happened in earlier litigation is in a settlement, thousands of people got their blood tested to see if they had been exposed to pfast at what levels and what health

impacts that might have had. So the case goes back to all of these people whose blood was tested for exposure and then scientists determined which health impacts were likely related. Now the stage in litigation that's happening now is people who have these different health problems that were linked to exposure, and they're trying to get DuPont comores to compensate them. I see, so this is so there. But didn't you say there was a settlement. I thought that this case

got resolved. What's you know? I thought this was case closed. There's been a lot going on. So initially there was a settlement in which there was just money available, and that money was used for people to get their blood tested so we could figure out what was going on here. Subsequent to that, there are a bunch of people filed suit about their actual health problems. DuPont settled thousands of those cases, but there are still today dozens that are left.

Some of them didn't settle correct and some were filed after this settlement because people are still becoming aware of health impacts they have that could be linked to their exposure. So DuPont's already paid out a lot of money for this, but it sounds like some of these cases are going to be going to trial, and you know, DuPont may have to pay out a lot more to those folks. What's you know? What are the stakes here for DuPont if they lose those cases at trial, which would be

pretty remarkable. So it's really important because it can what happens with this litigation, even though it's been going on and there have been previous settlements the cases. There's one case that's set to go to trial later this month if it stays on track, that's part of this multi district litigation. And depending on what happens in the trial or a settlement, that sends signals to all this other pfaest litigation that's going on all around the country for

what plaintiffs should be working for. Yeah, so if they you know, if these folks in Ohio win, you know, a really big settlement, then other folks who are suing other people across the country will say, well, we can get that too, So we should be able to sue other companies and get the same amount. So this is the stakes here are enormous for these companies that made p fas right, right, And the calculus when you're negotiating

a settlement really changes based on all these external factors. So, with the heightened awareness of p fas in general that it isn't working well in DuPont's favor, if they were going to try to settle this these cases, depending on the outcome, could this case have implications for the companies that have used PIFO to make other chemicals that they use for other manufacturing processes. Definitely. So this case deals with people who live around DuPont chemical manufacturing site on

the Ohio River. But there are all of these other cases like you mentioned, where other types of companies who just use those chemicals in their own manufacturing process they're getting suit too, and make the chemicals, they just use them. They just use them to make other things like shoes and plastics. So that's a great segue into Paths lawsuit because, as you mentioned, the folks who are suing DuPont in Ohio, are you know, were exposed to the chemicals because they

live next to a chemical manufacturing plant. The plaintiffs in your case, I get the sense are a little bit broader than that. That's an understatement what's going on in your case. It's HARDWEK v. Three M also in Ohio. It's Kevin Hardwick who's worked as a firefighter in the Cincinnati area for about forty years and he's suing ten companies that are making or have made different types of p fast chemicals. And what he's looking for on behalf of himself and every person in the US who has

these chemicals in their blood, which means everybody. We should That's the point that we should sort of belabor here, like the this is a class action suit for it seeks to be it seeks to be a class action suit for every single person who has pfast in their bloodstream, which theoretically could be everyone. Correct. How so, I mean, where what is his argument that literally everyone in the United States should be a plaintiff in a class action lawsuit.

What he's seeking isn't damages. What he's seeking is information. What he wants is information that will let us know whether this experiment in which we've been exposed to these synthetic chemicals is making us ill. So, I mean Ellen's lawsuit that we just talked about sounds like it was mainly limited to the Ohio Valley, and that lawsuit had huge implications. I mean, it resulted in a movie starring Mark Ruffalo. Like that's a pretty big implication onto itself.

It sounds like what you're talking about is taking that type of a lawsuit and making it nationwide, right, that could what I mean, and adding who knows how many chemicals to it? So if mister Hardwick, as you mentioned, is successful here. What are the stakes? I mean, what could potentially happen for these chemical makers or just for everyone. On the one hand, we'd get information that we just

don't have. It's often surprising to people, and it's surprising to regulators who are suddenly finding this in their communities water that we don't know much about these chemicals, some of which have been in commerce for decades and decades, some of which are newer. It would be an information forcing lawsuit because in the decades that EBA hasn't known about these chemicals, it has never actually required companies to

provide information about them. On the other hand, the companies that are being litigated say, just because you've got chemicals in your body doesn't mean they're causing harm. A couple of key things haven't been decided yet. One is can there be a class action that's this bit. I mean, that's the huge question. I'm not an attorney, but I just have to imagine that's like would be one of

the biggest class actions in US history. So even before that, of course, as you'd expect, the companies that are defending themselves have been trying to get the case dismissed that didn't work. Now. The next case is they want this case to be transferred into another multi district litigation case that is focused on what's called a triple F foam. It's a specialized type of firefighting and that's I happen to know what that stands for. It is aqueous film

forming foam. Yes, it's so. So they want to get this this case moved into you know, be heard with dozens or hundreds of other cases. But it sounds like that's yet to be decided, and that decision is supposed to be made January thirtieth. All right, well, thank you Pat and Ellen for bringing us up to speed on

those cases. We're going to take a little break, but stay tuned because we're going to be talking about the military's role in all of this and also why p fast is causing too corporate titans to duke it out in court. Stay tuned. All right, we're back and we're talking about p fast litigation. We're picking our top four most interesting p FAST lawsuits for twenty twenty, and Sylvia

Carridin has joined us. In Sylvia, we haven't really talked about the military that much and their role in this whole saga, but it sounds like you have a case that involves them. What's this case all about? Right? So this case is essentially Giovanni versus the US Navy. Giovanni versus US Navy. Okay, So Christian Giovanni representing herself, her spouse, and her kids. Okay. They all live fairly close to two Navy facilities in eastern Pennsylvania, and they've been concerned

about pfast in their drinking water. All right, and we should say that the Pfast it sounds like, got in there drinking water from the Navy facilities that use it in the firefighting phone. Yes, they suspect it's from the phone. There may be is like a fire on base or a training exercise. Training exercise, they spray the pham, the phone gets into the water and it migrates. So they are concerned, and they're suing the Navy. What are they suing them over? What do they want? So the big

concern here is medical monitoring. Basically, they want the Navy to be able to pay for eddy medical exams they have in years to come to just see if they have any sort of effects from being exposed to p fast chemicals. That sounds pretty simple. What's what's the twist here? The twist is super fund? Who super fun? What's tell me more about that? So do you have anni family sued under Pennsylvania's version of super fund law? Basically, they're saying, the Navy is polluting and we want to hold you

responsible under state law. And we should also say for those that are not, you know, humongous nerds. Super fund is the law that or the nickname for the law that governs how you clean up polluted contaminated sites. Right e there's a pollution on a site, this is the law that tells you how to do it. There's a whole process that you go through to do the cleanup. There is an actual super fund, Like there's a fund. There is a fund with money in it, a little bit of money in it from the EPA to hand

out to some of these sites. Okay, so they're saying, you know, there's this our site, the place where we live is contaminated and the Navy is responsible for contamination. You need to clean it up. So the Navy doesn't want to do any of those things. Okay. The Navy says that in order to give you guys the medical monitoring that you're asking for pfast would have to be

declared hazardous, so super fun law. Federal law does not do that yet, Pennsylvania law does not do that yet, So they are essentially waiting for either the state or the EPA to say that pfasts are hazardous substances. So without that designation, they won't be able to be eligible for that medical monitoring. But it sounds like the Giovanni's are saying, like, why do we need to wait for this? You know, we already know that our waters contaminated and we know that we have a pretty good idea it

was a Navy's fault. Why do we need to wait for some sort of designation? Hey, we need like can pay for this medical monitoring now, right? That is their argument. They're saying that, you know, basically, the EPA is on the cusp of doing this designation anyway, and Pennsylvania is already in progress, So why don't we just go ahead and move forward with the case. The Navy's saying, let's hold on, maybe we put a stay on this case for about six months and wait and see how it goes.

The court didn't like that. They don't like stays. Yeah, so I guess the next decision will be for the judge to say whether you know, we're going to hold off or move forward with the case. Interesting, all right, we'll be keeping an eye on that. And then finally we are going to land at a dispute between not between people and a company, but between a company and a company. Companies are people too, Yeah, thanks, thanks, mister Romby.

So the case here is Comores versus DuPont. As we mentioned, DuPont was one of the big makers of Pfast for a long time, but then in twenty fifteen they spun off this other company called Camores, and one of the conditions of the spinoff was that Camores would take all of the liability that DuPont may have in the future from p Fast Chemicals and just sort of agree to

pay that. So that was going okay for a while until a few years later when they realized we could have a lot of liability like p Fast could create just a massive amount of lawsuits and we would have to pay for that. So Kimore's suit its former parent company in court under a sealed lawsuits so no one knew this had happened, and they said, this agreement that you made when you spun us off was unfair. We don't think this is legit. We think that you should we should be able to sort of open this back

up and rewrite it again. Sealed lawsuit, no one knew what had happened, except then it got unsealed, and then everyone saw it happened, and Kimore's investors were very upset because the people who had invested in Kimor's had been told, everything's fine, we can manage the p fast liability. We're you know, making plans, and this is something we can

pay for. I thought it was fascinating because, you know, it's like a child suing their parent and you know, saying like, you didn't set me up for my future. You didn't give me enough allowance in the years when I was living in your house for me to be able to move out on my own. Yeah. I mean this is like Shakespearean levels of like you know, father son conflict, and like maybe I'm just reading in too

much of it. Sure, and I don't know where the investors fit in that analogy, but they're basically saying that the parent company, or excuse me, that the child company, you know, executives knew all of this information that they were very worried enough to go to court about it,

but they weren't revealing all of that to the investors. Right, that's exactly right that they said that not only did you know the Kimor's executives not have enough to handle all of these liabilities, but that they knew that and they lied about it. Now, of course Kimors is denying that. They're saying, you know, just because we're suing our former parent company doesn't mean we're insolvent. We can still handle

all these liabilities. We just want to rewrite the agreement and maybe get that out on a get us on a better footing, all right. That was Bloomberg Environments Sylvia Kergnan and Ellen Gilmer with pat Rizutak chiming in a little bit earlier, as well as myself giving you a roundup of a few significant p Fast lawsuits. We have so so much more about pa Fast on our website news dot Blueberg environment dot com. Seriously, go check it out.

There is good stuff there. If you want to chat with us on social media, use the hashtag parts per b. That hashtag, once again is parts per b. Today's episode of Parts Billion was produced by myself, along with Marissa Horn, Jessica Coombs, Our j Jewell, and special assistance from Anna Yukonanov. The music for this episode is a message by Jazar and the Detroit Dipper by Phil Chilton, getting used under a Creative Commons license. Thank you for listening. Cases and

controversies is all about the Supreme Court. Come on, come on, well, I agree with serious. We sit down with leading practitioners and scholars to break down these cases. I mean, I'm glad you brought that up so I didn't have to, but oh, that's interesting. I guess my imagination is running wild. Tune in every week for our Deep Dive and Sneak Peak episodes wherever you get your podcasts. As always, check out the latest news up Bloomberg Law dot com