DuPont Facing 40 PFOA Lawsuits a Year
Beginning in April 2017, DuPont could face 40 trials a year brought by plaintiffs claiming to have developed cancer or other diseases from exposure to perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA or C8) discharges from the company’s Washington Works plant in Parkersburg, West Virginia.
The toxic chemical used to make Teflon, the company’s market-leading non-stick coating for cooking utensils, since phased out, eventually found its way into drinking water reserves.
All 3,500 cases are being treated as class action litigation. Although DuPont has been named as the defendant in all cases, some of the liability has been transferred to Chemours, the July 2015 spin-off of the Wilmington, Delaware group’s Performance Chemicals business segment.
The schedule set by US district judge, Judge Edmund Sargus in the Southern District of Ohio is seen as an attempt to move the parties closer to resolving the lawsuits, some possibly in out-of-court settlements.
The first 40 trials will group together a selected 250-300 lawsuits brought by individuals who said they contracted kidney or testicular cancer from C-8.
DuPont said it welcomed the collective trials as opposed to the individual trials sought by the plaintiffs’ lawyers.
The first C-8 test trial held to help determine the aggregate value of individual suits ended in October 2015 with an award of $1.6 million verdict to an Ohio woman, Carla Marie Bartlett, who had kidney cancer. Four other trials are scheduled for 2016.
Chemours has accepted liability for the first verdict. The DuPont spin-off said an unfavorable outcome from the lawsuits could have a “material adverse effect” on its finances.
DuPont and Chemours have denied all the plaintiffs’ allegations. In 2005, DuPont paid $16.5 million to the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to settle allegations it hid information on health risks associated with C8.
