United States Ninth Circuit

In an action brought by residents claiming that emissions from a plutonium-production facility operated by defendants caused various cancers and other life-threatening diseases, rulings stemming from a bellwether trial are affirmed in part and reversed in part where: 1) complete immunity under the common law government contractor defense was inapplicable as a matter of law to defendants; 2) none of defendants' contentions were sufficient to relieve them of strict liability for the injuries they caused; 3) under Washington law, the district court properly instructed the jury that to impose liability, it had to find that the facility was the "but for" cause of plaintiffs' diseases and not just a contributing cause under the more lenient "substantial factor" test; 4) the district court properly dismissed any medical monitoring claims as not cognizable under the federal law at issue; 5) a judgment against one plaintiff, as well as a judgment in favor of another were proper; 6) judgments against certain plaintiffs required reversal on evidentiary grounds; and 7) a judgment for a plaintiff is reversed on statute of limitations grounds.

Appellate Information

• Argued 02/07/2007
• Decided 08/14/2007
• Published 08/14/2007

Judges

• Before:  MARY M. SCHROEDER, ALFRED T. GOODWIN and HAWKINS, Circuit Judges.

Court

• United States Ninth Circuit

Counsel

• For Appellees:
  
• Peter Nordberg, Berger & Montague, P.C., Philadelphia, PA;  Roy S. Haber, Roy S. Haber, P.C., Eugene, OR;  Daniel Johnson and David Breskin, Short Cressman & Burgess, PLLC, Seattle, WA, for the plaintiffs-appellants-appellees., Christopher Landau, Kirkland & Ellis, LLP, Washington, DC, for the defendants-appellees-appellants.