BAKER v. SAINT GOBAIN PERFORMANCE PLASTICS CORP (2020)

The present action is a class action--in which there have as yet been no class certifications--whose putative classes include all individual owners or renters of real property within the Village of Hoosick Falls, New York (the “Village”), and anyone who consumed water from the Village and exhibits a heightened level of the toxic chemical perfluorooctanoic acid (“PFOA”) in the blood, see Baker v. Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics Corp., 232 F.Supp.3d 233, 236 & n.1, 256 (N.D.N.Y. 2017) (“Baker I”). The complaint alleges that defendants Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics Corp. and Honeywell International Inc., f/k/a Allied-Signal Inc., respectively the owner and a past owner of a manufacturing facility in the Village, negligently used and disposed of PFOA in a manner that contaminated the Village's water supply. Defendants appeal pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1292(b) from so much of an order of the United States District Court for the Northern District of New York, Lawrence E. Kahn, Judge, as denied their motion under Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) for dismissal of plaintiffs' (1) claims of negligence and strict liability (a) for personal injury in the nature of accumulation of PFOA in the blood, thereby increasing risks of various types of illness, and (b) for damage to property; (2) claims of trespass and nuisance for contamination of water in privately owned wells; and (3) requests for the costs of medical monitoring as consequential damage for (a) personal injury or (b) damage to property, see Baker I, 232 F.Supp.3d at 252-53, 256-57.

This appeal was argued in tandem with two others that are decided today, including Benoit v. Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics Corp., 959 F.3d 491 (2d Cir. 2020) (“Benoit II”). Benoit II was a consolidated appeal from orders in 16 actions before Judge Kahn, brought by residents of the Village who asserted the same categories of claims as those asserted in the present action, see, e.g., Benoit v. Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics Corp., 2017 WL 3316132, at *1 (N.D.N.Y. Aug. 2, 2017) (“Benoit I”). Defendants' motion to dismiss claims in the present action contained the same arguments that defendants made in moving to dismiss the complaints in Benoit I; the district court's decisions in this case and those cases were the same, see, e.g., id. at *6, *13; and defendants' arguments in the present appeal challenging the court's Baker I denial of their motion to dismiss are virtually identical to those they have made in their appeal challenging the parallel orders entered in Benoit I.

For the reasons discussed in Benoit II, we conclude that the district court in the present case properly denied defendants' motion to dismiss plaintiffs' claims for personal injury, property damage, trespass, and private nuisance, and for medical monitoring with respect to personal injuries; and that the court's ruling that costs of medical monitoring can be awarded on the basis solely of injury to property is not a ruling that meets the criteria for immediate review under 28 U.S.C. § 1292(b).

Accordingly, the appeal from so much of the order of the district court as ruled that medical monitoring is available relief for a claim of property damage is dismissed as improvidently granted under § 1292(b). In all other respects, the denial of defendants' Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss is affirmed.

PER CURIAM: