A settlement has been reached between counsel for the plaintiff classes and the sole remaining defendant, E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Co., in the class action lawsuit commenced in 2016 arising out of the contamination of the water supply of the Village of Hoosick Falls and private wells throughout the Town of Hoosick with the carcinogen PFOA. The trial, which was scheduled to start this week, was postponed due to progress in negotiations that led to the settlement. The settlement reached with DuPont will total $27,000,000, which will bring the total recovered in the lawsuit to $92,250,000. The plaintiff classes reached a settlement with three other defendants in 2021.
“On the eve of trial, after a nine-year fight, that included an interim appeal to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, we are gratified to have reached what we believe will be the final resolution of this case that will provide significant added benefit to the residents of Hoosick Falls and the Town of Hoosick,” said Stephen Schwarz of Faraci Lange in Rochester, New York, co-lead counsel for the Plaintiffs.
“Once approved, our agreement with DuPont will bring the total distributions to residents for loss of property value due to the contamination to approximately $35,000,000, which is very close to the maximum loss calculated by Dr. Jeffrey Zabel, a real estate economist from Tuft’s University,” added James Bilsborrow of Weitz & Luxenberg in New York City, who also serves as co-lead counsel for Plaintiffs.
“This settlement with DuPont will also provide an additional $6,000,000 in funding for the existing ten year medical monitoring program established under the prior settlement with unused funds at the termination of the program to be distributed to the participants, who can choose to use those funds to continue their medical surveillance if they wish,” said Hadley Lundback, also of Faraci Lange.
Because this is a class action, the settlement must be preliminarily approved by the Hon. Mae A. D’Agostino, U.S.D.J. who was to preside over the trial.
Thereafter class members will have the opportunity to file claims to receive settlement benefits, opt out of the settlement or object to the settlement if they disagree with its terms. After this process, the Court will hold a fairness hearing, and if satisfied that the settlement is in the best interests of the classes, will issue an Order of final approval.
The class action lawsuit, entitled Baker, et al., v. E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Co., was originally filed in United States District Court for the Northern District of New York in 2016 against Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics Corp. and Honeywell, International Inc., companies that owned and operated the Teflon fabric coating facility located in the Village of Hoosick Falls on McCaffrey Street. Plaintiffs alleged that air and wastewater emissions from this facility resulted in the contamination in the Village and throughout the town with perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), a chemical that has been linked to a number of serious illnesses including kidney and testicular cancer and has recently been classified by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) as a Group 1 human carcinogen. PFOA is one of a class of chemicals referred to as “forever chemicals” because of their persistence in the environment for decades without decomposing. DuPont, the manufacturer of Teflon dispersions containing PFOA that were used at the McCaffrey Street facility, and 3M Co., the inventor and manufacturer of PFOA used by DuPont in the production of its Teflon dispersions, were added as defendants to the lawsuit in 2018. The class action suit sought damages for property devaluation due to the contamination, nuisance, and to establish a program for future medical surveillance of the exposed residents who retained the chemical in their blood.
In 2021, a settlement was reached between Plaintiffs’ counsel and Saint-Gobain, Honeywell and 3M for a total of $65,250,000. On February 4, 2022, the Hon. Lawrence Kahn, U.S.D.J. issued an order approving the settlement. Thereafter, $20,700,000 was distributed to eligible property owners based on a percentage of their property’s 2015 assessed value. Another $7,761,683 was distributed to owners and renters of private wells contaminated with PFOA in the Town, and $22,800,000 was used to fund a Medical Monitoring Program implemented through Southwestern Vermont Medical Center, where eligible members of the medical monitoring class can be evaluated on a yearly basis for ten years and screened for early signs of the illnesses that have been associated with PFOA exposure.
In September of 2022, Judge Kahn certified two property damage classes and a medical monitoring class against DuPont and the litigation continued over the past three years leading up to the scheduled trial that was set to begin this week.
“Information will soon be provided on the website previously established for the prior settlements, http:hoosickfallspfoasettlement.com,” Schwarz said. “After Preliminary Approval, instructions for how to register, object or opt out will be posted on the website.”
“Residents and former residents who qualify but did not register for the prior settlement will be eligible to participate in this settlement, so it is important to check the website for details as soon as they become available,” said Bilsborrow. “Our participation rate in the prior settlement was roughly 70% of eligible claimants, which is an excellent for a class action settlement. We will do whatever we can to ensure that all eligible residents are able to reap the benefits of this settlement as well.”
For additional information contact Stephen Schwarz or Hadley Lundback of Faraci Lange (585-325-5150, sschwarz@faraci.com, hadley@faraci.com) or James Bilsborrow of Weitz & Luxenberg (jbilsborrow@weitzlux.com, (212-558-5856)