Mass Tort Defense : Mass Tort Defense Lawyer & Attorney : Sean P. Wajert : Dechert Law Firm : Products Liability, Class Actions, Pharmaceutical Litigation

A federal court has excluded plaintiffs' expert testimony in litigation alleging personal injury and property damage from releases at a Midwest refinery.  Baker, et al. v. Chevron USA Inc., et al., No. 05-cv-00227 (S.D. Ohio Jan. 6, 2010). In the absence of necessary expert testimony, the claims were subject to summary judgment.

Plaintiffs in this case were residents of the villages of Hooven and Cleves, Ohio, who asserted claims for personal injury and property damage allegedly resulting from the Gulf Oil refinery, now owned by defendant Chevron USA.  Gulf operated a gasoline refinery which was situated on the eastern edge of Hooven from 1930 to 1985. Gulf also refined diesel fuel, jet fuel, and fuel oil at the refinery and operated an asphalt plant at this location. Gulf and Chevron merged in 1985, and Chevron closed the refinery in 1986.

Plaintiffs alleged that Gulf’s operation of the refinery resulted in the release of millions of gallons of gasoline and diesel fuel.  But these plaintiffs did not claim injuries resulting from groundwater contamination. Rather, they asserted injuries allegedly caused by air emissions from the refinery and, in particular, the benzene contained in those emissions. Benzene is ubiquitous in the ambient air and is a component or constituent of vehicle exhaust and cigarette smoke. In the petroleum industry, benzene is found in small amounts in gasoline.

For case management purposes, the matter was bifurcated between personal injury claimants and property damage claimants. The parties were permitted to select bellwether plaintiffs for each trial group. This opinion dealt with the claims of the bellwether personal injury claimants, and a key issue, as is often the case in toxic tort litigation, was causation.

Regarding their alleged benzene exposure, plaintiffs offered a three-step procedure. First, expert Dr. Cheremisinoff calculated a gross amount of benzene released from the refinery through emissions. Then, using those calculations, Dr. Rosenfeld, plaintiffs’ second expert, used an air flow model to calculate the cumulative dose of benzene to which each plaintiff was exposed. Third, using those dose estimates, a third expert, Dr. Dahlgren, submitted opinions that each plaintiff’s dose of benzene was sufficient to cause her illness. 

Chevron moved to exclude Dr. Dahlgren's opinions under Daubert, and for summary judgment contingent  upon the striking of  plaintiffs' causation evidence. The principal argument raised was that Dr. Dahlgren’s opinions were unreliable because there was an insufficient scientific or medical basis to conclude that the doses of benzene to which plaintiffs’ were exposed were large enough to have caused their illnesses. Relatedly, Chevron contended that there is an insufficient scientific or medical basis to conclude that benzene even causes some of the illnesses alleged. The Court held a hearing on Chevron’s Daubert motion during which Dr. Dahlgren and Chevron’s medical expert also testified.

In a toxic tort case, the plaintiff must present evidence of both general causation and specific causation. General causation establishes whether the substance or chemical at issue is capable of causing a particular injury or condition. Specific causation relates to whether the substance or chemical in fact caused this plaintiff’s medical condition. Without expert medical testimony on both general causation and specific causation, a plaintiff’s toxic tort claim will fail.

In this case, Dr. Dahlgren offered causation opinions based largely on epidemiological studies. (Epidemiology is the study of the incidence, distribution, and etiology of disease in human populations.) Epidemiology is usually considered highly probative evidence on general causation in toxic tort cases. The court may nonetheless exclude expert testimony based on epidemiological studies where the studies are insufficient, whether considered individually or collectively, to support the expert’s causation opinion. Nothing in either Daubert or the Federal Rules of Evidence requires a district court to admit opinion evidence that is connected to existing data only by the ipse dixit of the expert. A court may thus conclude that there is simply too great an analytical gap between the data and the opinion proffered.

A couple of parts of the court's detailed analysis are worth highlighting for readers of  MassTortDefense:

First, Dr. Dahlgren’s reliance on the “one-hit” or “no threshold” theory of causation in which exposure to one molecule of a cancer-causing agent has some finite possibility of causing a genetic mutation leading to cancer. The court noted that while the one-hit theory has been accepted for purposes of establishing regulatory safety standards, it has not been accepted as a reliable theory for causation under Daubert standards.  See Allen v. Pennsylvania Eng’g Corp., 102 F.3d 194, 199 (5th Cir. 1996) (“Scientific knowledge of the harmful level of exposure to a chemical, plus knowledge that the plaintiff was exposed to such quantities, are minimal facts necessary to sustain the plaintiffs’ burden in a toxic tort case.”); McClain v. Metabolife Int’l, Inc., 401 F.3d 1233, 1240 (11th Cir. 2005) (holding that district court erred by not excluding plaintiff’s expert’s causation opinion because he neglected dose-response relationship); Henricksen v. ConocoPhillips Co., 605 F. Supp.2d 1142, 1162 (E.D. Wash. 2009) (excluding expert’s opinion pursuant to Daubert where “he presumed that exposure to benzene in gasoline can cause AML in any dose.”); National Bank of Commerce v. Associated Milk Producers, Inc., 22 F. Supp.2d 942, 961 (E.D.Ark. 1998), aff’d, 191 F.3d 858 (8th Cir. 1999); Sutera v. Perrier Group of Am., Inc., 986 F. Supp. 655, 667 (D. Mass.
1997). Moreover, since benzene is ubiquitous, causation under the one-hit theory could not be established because it would be just as likely that ambient benzene was the cause of plaintiffs’ asserted illnesses.

Second, the court noted that to the extent that Dr. Dahlgren relied on the evidence that plaintiffs were exposed to benzene in excess of regulatory levels, that is insufficient to make his opinions admissible. The mere fact that plaintiffs were exposed to benzene emissions in excess of mandated limits is insufficient to establish causation. Nelson v. Tennessee Gas Pipeline Co., 243 F.3d 244, 252-53 (6th Cir. 2001); David L. Eaton, Scientific Judgment and Toxic Torts- A Primer in Toxicology for Judges and Lawyers, 12 J.L. & Pol’y 5, 39 (2003) (“regulatory levels are of substantial value to public health agencies charged with ensuring the protection of the public health, but are of limited value in judging whether a particular exposure was a substantial contributing factor to a particular individual’s disease or illness.”). This is because regulatory agencies are charged with protecting public health and thus reasonably employ a lower threshold of proof in promulgating their regulations than is used in tort cases. Allen, 102 F.3d at 198.

Third, the court focused on the issue of the link between cited literature and the actual specific opinion given. The court recognized that an expert’s opinion does not have to be unequivocally supported by all epidemiological studies in order to be admissible under Daubert. But here, the opinions expressed in Dr. Dahlgren’s revised report were based "on a scattershot of studies and articles which superficially touch on each of the illnesses at issue." The expert had not differentiated the cases in any way and simply assumed that each reference supported his causation opinion on each and every illness. That clearly was not the case. Also, none of the cited studies supported an opinion that benzene can cause the illnesses from which plaintiffs suffer at the extremely low doses or exposures experienced in this case. Even if it is medically accepted that benzene can cause disease at high doses, Dr. Dahlgren could not cite any paper finding that the relevant low cumulative exposure significantly increases the risk of developing the injuries.

The court, therefore, found that the expert's causation opinions were not reliable under the standards enunciated by Daubert and, consequently, inadmissible. Without Dr. Dahlgren's testimony, the plaintiffs were unable to establish that their illnesses were caused by alleged emissions from the plant, the court observed, and so granted Chevron's motion for summary judgment on all four bellwether personal injury plaintiffs.
 

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Readers of MassTortDefense recognize that one feature of the asbestos litigation is the co-called family or household exposure case, a form of by-stander liability in which the plaintiff alleges he or she contracted asbestos disease not from exposures at work but through contact with a family member who brings the fibers home from a job.

A recent case explores this situation in a non-asbestos context.  In  Oddone v. The Superior Court of Los Angeles County, 2009 WL 4044429 (Cal. Ct. App.,  11/24/09), James Oddone worked for Technicolor, Inc., from 1973 until 2006; he died from a brain tumor (glioblastoma multiforme) in January 2007. His wife, inter alia, asserted on her own behalf the theory that her husband brought home toxic vapors and chemicals on his clothing and person and that she was injured by exposure to these materials; this cause of action was predicated on Technicolor's alleged negligence in exposing her husband to toxic chemicals.

Most claims of this type are analyzed, at first, with a duty analysis.  Here, the defendant argued, and the lower court agreed, there was no duty to the wife, using the traditional duty factors, including whether transaction was intended to affect the plaintiff; the foreseeability of harm to the plaintiff; the degree of certainty that the plaintiff suffered injury; the closeness of the connection between the defendant's conduct and the injury suffered; the moral blame attached to the defendant's conduct; and the policy of preventing future harm.

The court of appeals did agree with the proposition that this was the exact analytical framework for the case. Rather, the major factors ought to be ones are the foreseeability of harm to the plaintiff, the degree of certainty that the plaintiff suffered injury, the closeness of the connection between the defendant's conduct and the injury suffered, the moral blame attached to the defendant's conduct, the policy of preventing future harm, the extent of the burden to the defendant and consequences to the community of imposing a duty to exercise care with resulting liability for breach, and the availability, cost, and prevalence of insurance for the risk involved.

In order to apply those factors, however, a plaintiff claiming to have been injured by an exposure to chemicals must specify the chemical that caused the injury and in the course of doing so must of course also specify the injury. Importantly, he must also allege that as a result of the exposure the specified toxin entered his body.  The court said it does not make a difference that the plaintiff is claiming injury as a result of secondary exposure. If anything, the exposure requirements are even more apropos in such a case because the connection between the defendant's acts and the claimed injury is more attenuated than in a primary exposure context.

"It cannot be denied that a case predicated on secondary exposure to chemicals potentially cuts a very wide swath," said the court of appeals.  It is therefore only appropriate to pay close attention to the factor that there must be a close connection between the defendant's conduct and the injury suffered. That connection is only shown by setting forth specifically which chemicals cause which specified injuries. In a secondary exposure case, the allegation that as a result of the exposure the specified chemical entered the plaintiff's body is of particular importance. Central issues in such a case are whether secondary exposure to a specified chemical is even possible and, if it is, whether the exposure will result in the ingestion of the chemical into the plaintiff's body.

Turning to policy issues, the court did not hold that a plaintiff cannot ever state a cause of action for secondary exposure to toxic chemicals.  But, as part of the analysis, including “all family members” into the category of those owed a duty would be too broad, as not all family members will be in constant and personal contact with the employee. Limiting the class to spouses would be at once too narrow and too broad, as others may be in contact with the employee and spouses may not invariably be in contact with the employee. Limiting the class to those persons who have frequent and personal contact with employees leaves at large the question what “frequent” and “personal” really means.  The gist of the matter is that imposing a duty toward non-employee persons saddles the defendant employer with a burden of uncertain but potentially very large scope. One of the consequences to the community of such an extension is the cost of insuring against liability of unknown but potentially massive dimension. Ultimately, such costs are borne by the consumer.

Here, the court of appeals could not say that the trial court abused its discretion in sustaining the demurrer to the first amended complaint without leave to amend.

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A federal court has granted summary judgment in a toxic tort suit in which plaintiff alleged he contracted a bone disease because of his long-term exposure to trace amounts of benzene in oil-based paint. Smolowitz v. The Sherwin-Williams Co., 2008 WL 4862981 (E.D.N.Y. Nov. 10, 2008). Plaintiff failed to offer sufficient evidence under New York law of exposure level.

In order to prevail in a toxic tort case, plaintiffs must present sufficient evidence to support a finding that defendants' products caused plaintiffs' injuries. Proof of causation requires establishing both “general” causation and “specific” causation.  General causation bears on whether the type of injury at issue can be caused or exacerbated by the defendant's product. Specific causation bears on whether, in the particular instance, the injury actually was caused or exacerbated by the defendant's product.  The fundamental principle of toxicology is that the dose makes the poison: substances that are benign or even beneficial at a certain level can be toxic at another. Even when general causation is clear, a plaintiff must show that he or she was exposed to a sufficient dose of the substance to have caused the disease. Under New York law, plaintiffs must establish both general and specific causation through expert testimony

Plaintiff Richard Smolowitz worked as a drywall taper and spackler over a thirty year period beginning in the 1950s and ending in the early 1980s. Plaintiff alleges that his exposure to benzene in paints caused him to contract myelodysplastic syndrome (“MDS”).  A central factual issue in this case, said the court, was the level of exposure to which plaintiff was subject, and whether that level of exposure can cause MDS. First, plaintiff was not a painter, but alleged he worked in areas where paint products were regularly used. Second, the solvents used in defendants' oil based paints contained only a trace contamination of benzene due to the fact that the products are based on petroleum, and it is not always possible to remove all of the benzene during the manufacturing process.

In early motion practice, plaintiff's counsel represented that he would provide the testimony of expert witnesses who could prove that plaintiff was exposed to oil based paints with sufficient levels of benzene to cause his illness. Eventually, he relied on the opinions of plaintiff's treating physician, Dr. Silverman, to provide expert testimony on issues of general and specific causation. The doctor reported he was currently treating plaintiff for MDS; that Smolowitz reported a history of exposure to oil based paints, thinners and benzene during a 35-year period; and that in his opinion it was “likely to a reasonable medical probability, that Mr. Smolowitz's exposure to benzene during the years that he worked as a dry-wall mechanic is causative for his current hematologic condition.”

The court concluded that Dr. Silverman's testimony was inadequate to prove either general or specific causation. The conclusory statement that based upon plaintiff's reported history it was likely to a reasonable medical probability that Mr. Smolowitz's exposure to benzene during the years that he worked as a dry-wall mechanic is causative for his current hematologic condition, had substantial deficiencies. First, there was nothing in this statement that suggests that Dr. Silverman was aware of or had quantified the precise amount of benzene to which plaintiff was exposed. No proof of dose. Second, Dr. Silverman did not offer any opinion as to whether that limited level of benzene exposure, whatever it was, can cause the disease. In the absence of sufficient evidence from an expert or a treating physician of the plaintiff's exposure level, plaintiff could not prove the essential causation element of the claim.
 

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The recent decision in Boyd v. Allied Signal, Inc., 2008 WL 4603401 (La.App. 1st Cir., October 17, 2008), illustrates a distressingly common feature of class actions, particularly those in the toxic tort context. Class representatives who are not injured, and not even members of the class.

The basic facts: a compressed gas trailer owned by Allied Signal, Inc. and loaded with boron trifluoride developed a leak from one of its tubes while being transported as a tractor-trailer unit. After the leak was discovered, the tractor-trailer unit stopped around noon on the westbound shoulder of I-12 on or near its overpass for Cedarcrest Avenue in Baton Rouge, where the tube continued to leak and dispersed BF3 in the air. Mitigation efforts ensued, and were completed approximately eighteen hours later.

A number of civil actions seeking class action status were subsequently filed by those allegedly impacted by the leak. The trial court consolidated the various actions and ultimately certified a class action as to the issue of liability, establishing geographic boundaries approximately corresponding to those of an emergency “shelter in place” plan for nearby residents and to various gas dispersion plumes or isopleths estimated on a successive hourly basis by the plaintiffs' expert in atmospheric dispersion. The Louisiana court of appeals affirmed the trial court's decision to certify the class action. Boyd v. Allied Signal, Inc., 898 So.2d 450, 453-54 (La.App. 1st Cir.12/30/04), writ denied, 897 So.2d 606 (La.4/1/05).

One of the class reps claimed she had entered the westbound portion of Interstate Highway 12, and about five to ten minutes later encountered stalled traffic and observed a police officer some distance ahead, standing outside his unit. After pulling her vehicle onto the shoulder, she and her husband allegedly exited the vehicle and walked to the side of the highway, where she observed a truck ahead, surrounded by a haze. Ms. Smith claimed that she experienced eye irritation and coughing during the course of events, and washed her eyes with eyewash after arriving at her destination. She did not seek medical treatment for those claimed symptoms.

Ms. Smith was confirmed as a class representative. But identification of members of the class based upon their claims of physical presence in its geographic and temporal limits is an issue separate from proof of the veracity of such claims. Ms. Smith was not thereby relieved of her burden of proof on the issues of causation and damages by virtue of her status as a class representative. Defendants appealed the judgment in favor of Ms. Smith.

Under cross-examination, Ms. Smith had acknowledged there was nothing that prevented her from using an exit to get off I-12, rather than remain on the shoulder. Her husband admitted they were told to get back in their vehicle. In deposition he admitted that they never drove past the leaking tractor-trailer. Thus, during the time she was on I-12, she never closely approached the class geographic boundaries. The geographic boundaries of the class were carefully drawn to coincide as closely as practicable with a circle defined by the quarter-mile “shelter-in-place” radius centered on “ground zero” and the BF3 dispersion plumes postulated by the plaintiffs' expert in air dispersion in his air modeling.

At the conclusion of Ms. Smith's presentation of evidence, the defendants moved for involuntary dismissal of Ms. Smith's cause of action on the grounds that she failed to prove any symptomatic exposure to BF3. The defendants emphasized that the plaintiffs' own expert testified that the exit plaintiff used was outside the area of his air modeling, and that any concentration at that location “was so low that it would not have any significance from the point of view of a toxicologist.”

The trial court clearly erred in finding that Ms. Smith sustained symptomatic BF3 exposure while traveling on I-12. There was no testimony or other evidence supporting that finding. The court of appeals carefully reviewed the maps, diagrams, and aerial photographs showing the geographic boundaries of the class. That review leads to the inescapable conclusion that Ms. Smith failed to prove that she was within the class geographic boundaries and that she suffered any exposure to airborne BF3 sufficient to cause any symptoms.
 

It is amazing that the claim was handled properly only on appeal, for a plaintiff who was not exposed, not injured, should never have been a class rep, was not a class member, and had no business obtaining a judgment at trial.

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The 8th Circuit has upheld the trial court’s decision that a plaintiff who alleged she was injured by drinking water from a bottle filled with freon did not have adequate and valid expert evidence of causation. Bland v. Verizon Wireless, 2008 WL 3474178 (8th Cir. August 14, 2008).

Plaintiff alleged that she inadvertently left her water bottle behind in a store, and an employee of defendant sprayed compressed air into her water bottle “as a joke,” believing the water bottle belonged to a fellow employee. At home, plaintiff opened the bottle which “made a-kind of pressurized noise.” She took a drink, then decided to smell the contents, taking a big whiff which made her cough. She then allegedly took another drink.

Plaintiff later reported to her doctor that after drinking from the bottle she coughed, which persisted for nearly an hour. She also described a “sore sensation in her throat” and for the next few days a “raspy sensation in her lungs.” Plaintiff alleged she developed a headache which persisted for about two weeks. Later testing at the University of Iowa Lab determined the bottle contained 820 parts per million (ppm) (.08%) of difluoroethane, a freon compound.

Plaintiff was later seen by a Dr. Sprince, complaining of shortness of breath when running. Her lung function test results were basically normal. Dr. Sprince eventually diagnosed her as having “exercise-induced asthma.” Dr. Sprince later theorized that “[b]ased on the initial clinical findings, [a] strong temporal relationship between the inhalation of freon and the occurrence of respiratory symptoms, and the subsequent response to pre-exercise treatment with inhaled bronchodilator” that plaintiff's exercise-induced asthma was caused by the inhalation of freon.

Plaintiff sought to use the testimony of this treating physician, Dr. Sprince, to establish a causal link between inhalation of freon and the alleged exercise-induced asthma. The district court excluded Dr. Sprince's testimony because Dr. Sprince's proffered testimony as to causation did not satisfy the standards for admission of expert scientific testimony under Daubert.

The 8th Circuit affirmed, noting first that a treating physician's expert opinion on causation is subject to the same standards of scientific reliability that govern the expert opinions of physicians hired solely for purposes of litigation.

The first problem with Dr. Sprince's causation testimony was that she failed scientifically to eliminate other possible causes as part of her differential diagnosis. In particular, her own testimony acknowledged the cause of exercise-induced asthma in the majority of cases is unknown. Where the cause of the condition is unknown in the majority of cases, an expert cannot properly conclude, based upon a simple differential diagnosis, that exposure, here to freon, was the most probable cause of the injury. As a practical matter, Dr. Sprince's causation opinion could not possibly be based upon a reasonable degree of medical certainty. Where the majority of cases of exercise-induced asthma have no known cause, and where Dr. Sprince failed to do an investigation and analysis of plaintiff's home or other environments in search of other possible causes, the district court did not abuse its discretion in determining Dr. Sprince's differential diagnosis did not satisfy Daubert.

Second, plaintiff’s expert did not know what amount of exposure to freon causes, or involves an appreciable risk of causing, asthma, and had no good grounds for determining whether plaintiff  was exposed to a sufficient dose to have caused her asthma. Dr. Sprince could not determine or estimate the amount of freon plaintiff was actually or probably exposed to. The expert could not extrapolate from the existing data because the gap between the data identified (exposure facts) and Dr. Sprince's proffered opinion was simply too great an analytical gap to support admissibility. Critical to a determination of causation is characterizing exposure. In a toxic tort case, the magnitude or concentration of an exposure should be estimated and the temporal aspects of the exposure should be determined --whether the exposure was short-term and lasted a few minutes, days, weeks, or months, or was long-term and lasted for years. Dr. Sprince lacked knowledge regarding what level of exposure to freon constitutes an appreciable risk of causing asthma and the specific concentration and degree of exposure to the freon. Similarly, plaintiff’s expert did not offer as evidence any personal experience with treating other patients following a similar exposure, admitting she had no such experience.

Finally, the expert’s heavy reliance on temporal proximity, without more, was insufficient to establish causation. In the absence of an established scientific connection between exposure and illness, or compelling circumstances, the temporal connection between exposure to chemicals and an onset of symptoms, standing alone, is entitled to little weight in determining causation. See Moore v. Ashland Chem., Inc., 151 F.3d 269, 278 (5th Cir.1998). It is not always irrelevant, said the court. The temporal relationship often will be one of several factors, and the weight to be given to the temporal relationship will differ depending on the strength of that relationship. But in this case, the district court properly discounted all the other factors supporting Dr. Sprince's opinion leaving only temporal proximity to support Dr. Sprince's causation opinion. And that was not enough, especially when plaintiff did not make an appointment with a doctor until two to three weeks after the incident.
 

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A federal court has weighed in on the issue of exposure in a toxic tort property damages suit, denying summary judgment and finding the presence of vinyl chloride in the air, even if undetectable, may constitute a physical injury to property under a common law property damage claim. Gates v. Rohm and Haas Co., 2008 WL 2977867 (E.D.Pa., July 31, 2008 ).

Plaintiffs in this putative class action sued Rohm and Haas and others pursuant to CERCLA, and state law, for damages allegedly resulting from contamination of their drinking water by pollutants that the Defendants allegedly generated and released. The proposed property damage class consisted of  about 500 "persons who presently own real property within McCollum Lake Village (‘Village’), or who owned real property within the Village as of April 25, 2006 through the present.” Defendants filed a motion for partial summary judgment with respect to the plaintiffs' common law property claims: public and private nuisance, negligent and intentional trespass, strict liability, negligence and negligence per se for damages arising out of alleged continuing airborne vinyl chloride contamination and past groundwater contamination.

The plaintiffs contended that this alleged “physical invasion” of their property by a carcinogenic contaminant caused a diminution in value of their property, in part due to the stigma caused by the alleged contamination. Rohm and Haas argued that applicable (Illinois) law does not recognize a cause of action for “economic harm” absent physical damage. The plaintiffs' property damage claim thus should fail because there was no evidence in the record of any physical injury to accompany the alleged economic injury (the diminution in value of the property due to supposed “stigma” associated with the alleged contamination).

According to the court, the first issue was the basic factual question of whether there was sufficient evidence of “present” contamination. The second issue was whether any such contamination constitutes a “physical injury.” And, finally, the third issue was whether diminution in value is an appropriate measure of damages based on the type of harm alleged.

A. “Present” Contamination
It was undisputed that at present no vinyl chloride or vinylidene chloride has been detected in any well in McCollum Lake Village. And it is undisputed that any alleged groundwater contamination was purely historical. It was unclear, however, to the court whether under Illinois law such past physical injury, coupled with ongoing alleged economic harm, suffices to permit pursuit of economic losses in tort. The fundamental factual question here for the court was whether there was sufficient evidence of permanent or ongoing physical injury to the plaintiffs' property. Although defendants made a strong showing, the court found a genuine dispute as to whether present levels of airborne vinyl chloride in McCollum Lake Village are below background levels and, accordingly, whether there is current airborne vinyl chloride “contamination.”

B. “Physical” Injury
Even assuming past and present vinyl chloride exposure, the court had to determine whether such exposure constitutes a “physical injury” for purposes of stating common law tort claims. The court reasoned that the presence of harmful chemicals in property loss actions is treated differently than the presence of non-hazardous materials. Notably, there is no requirement that a hazardous chemical be perceptible to the senses. The presence of an undetected hazardous chemical can support a claim for nuisance, thought the court. That the chemical is not immediately perceptible to the senses is not dispositive when when there is evidence of actual physical invasion of class area property.

Moreover, said the court, in contrast to the standards for medical monitoring claims, the exposure level need not necessarily present a health risk to make out a property damage claim. Such a view is not unanimous in the courts. E.g., Rockwell Int'l Corp. v. Wilhite, 143 S.W.2d 604, 620, 627 (Ky.App.Ct.2003); Rose v. Union Oil Co., No. 97-2808, 1999 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 967, at *3-4, *17 (N.D.Cal. Jan. 29, 1999). Nevertheless, this court concluded that the physical presence of vinyl chloride in the air, even if undetectable, constitutes a physical injury to the property for purposes of common law property damage claims.

C. The Appropriate Measure of Damages
Third, the court concluded that in the context of the present case, diminution in value was an appropriate measure of damages. The categorization of harm as “permanent” or “temporary” is not always dispositive. Rather than a compelling legal analysis to respond to defendant's strong argument on this point, the court resorted largely to the the generic policy observation that courts must be mindful of the fact that rules governing the proper measure of damages in a particular case are guides only and should not be applied in an arbitrary, formulaic, or inflexible manner. 
 

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A legal malpractice case is the somewhat surprising setting for an interesting Daubert toxic tort opinion, but we found one. Young, et al. v. Burton, et al, 2008 WL 2810237 (D.D.C. 7/22/08).

Plaintiffs sued a law firm for allegedly failing to file a timely personal injury lawsuit for their alleged mold-induced injuries. The lawsuit would have sought recovery from a landlord for damages suffered by plaintiffs allegedly as a result of exposure to toxic mold while residing in a DC apartment building. In order to succeed on their legal malpractice claim, plaintiffs needed to show their underlying claim was meritorious. Thus, plaintiffs needed admissible expert testimony as to the cause, nature, and extent of their injuries.

Defendants moved to exclude the expert’s testimony, arguing that his opinions were not based on a reliable methodology.

Following a Daubert hearing, the Court concluded that the diagnosis of plaintiffs, as well as the proffered opinions relating to general and specific causation, were not sufficiently grounded in scientifically valid principles and methods to satisfy Daubert.

Exposure Claim

Plaintiffs resided in the apartment for approximately thirty-four days, during which time plaintiffs contend they could smell noxious fumes from raw sewage. They testified they noticed extensive visible mold growth in an adjacent vacant apartment, although they estimated they were in that apartment for no longer than one or two minutes. There was no documentation of any visible mold growth in plaintiffs', and plaintiffs did not believe the two apartments shared a common air source.

Both plaintiffs submitted extensive medical records to document the health problems that they attribute to their mold exposure, but medical records also indicated significant medical problems prior to moving into the apartment

Plaintiffs’ expert, Dr. Shoemaker, used his own differential diagnostic procedure for mold illness. That procedure involves a two-tiered analysis. To satisfy the first tier, all three of the following factors must be met: (1) the potential for exposure; (2) the presence of a distinctive group of symptoms; and (3) the absence of confounding diagnoses and exposures. The second tier looks at levels of certain hormones and enzymes in the blood which the expert believes are altered by exposure to a biotoxin and thus serve as “biomarkers.”

Defense Argument

Defendants requested a Daubert hearing, arguing that there was no evidence as to the exact substance plaintiffs were exposed to or the level at which they were exposed, and thus formal toxicological causation analysis could not be performed. In addition, the tests Dr. Shoemaker used to reach his diagnosis are experimental and “not generally accepted in the toxicology community.” The traditional causation analysis, relying on the nine “Hill Criteria” that are necessary to establish a causal relationship, does not support a causal association between the dark material on the adjacent apartment walls and the plaintiffs' health complaints. (In a nutshell, the Hill Criteria are: 1) strength; 2) consistency; 3) specificity; 4) temporality; 5) biological gradient; 6) plausibility; 7) coherence; 8) experiment; and 9) analogy).

Mold Disease Causation
Courts throughout the country have varied widely with respect to the level of certainty they require with respect to the issue of causation in mold cases. See Jeffrey J. Hayward, The Same Mold Story?: What Toxic Mold is Teaching us about Causation in Toxic Tort Litigation, 83 N.C. L.Rev. 518, 536-38 (2005). One common method of plaintiffs attempting to demonstrate causation is showing a temporal relationship between exposure to a toxin and subsequent adverse health effects. However, while necessary, temporal association between exposure and illness, without more, is generally insufficient to establish causation. Under the traditional approach, in the absence of an established scientific connection between exposure and illness, the temporal connection between exposure to chemicals and an onset of symptoms, standing alone, is entitled to little weight in determining causation.

The most widely-used method of demonstrating causation in toxic tort cases is to present scientifically accepted information about the dose-response curve for the toxin which confirms that the toxin can cause the health effects experienced by the plaintiff at the dosage plaintiff was exposed to. Indeed, scientific knowledge of the harmful level of exposure to a chemical, plus knowledge that the plaintiff was exposed to such quantities, are minimal facts necessary to sustain the plaintiff's burden in a toxic tort case.

Diagnosis Flawed
Dr. Shoemaker could not show that plaintiffs met his own case definition. In the first tier of Dr. Shoemaker's case definition, the patient must have had exposure; clearly, a person cannot be made ill by mold toxins to which she has not actually been exposed. No environmental tests were conducted in plaintiffs' apartment to provide actual proof that plaintiffs did, in fact, inhale toxic substances when they resided there.

Shoemaker attempted to show that plaintiffs had the requisite exposure in two ways, neither of which was convincing to the court. First, Dr. Shoemaker believed that his case definition allowed him to use the diagnosis of the disease as evidence of actual exposure. In short, the symptoms fundamentally become the basis for explaining themselves. Such circular reasoning is not scientifically or medically acceptable. And factually, plaintiffs' complex of symptoms did not begin immediately after exposure. Also, the symptoms did not remain consistent over time. Finally, Dr. Shoemaker was unable to determine which symptoms are actually attributable to the mold. Rather, he testified that roughly 75% of plaintiffs' symptoms were probably attributable to this mold exposure, although he could not say which ones.

The third element of the first tier of Dr. Shoemaker's diagnostic protocol is that there be an absence of confounding diagnoses and exposures. This requirement is critical to a differential diagnosis, which is to conclude that only the chosen diagnosis could be responsible for the symptoms presented. Nevertheless, Dr. Shoemaker glossed over the explanation of how he ruled out all potential confounding explanations for plaintiffs' symptoms. At points, Dr. Shoemaker brushed off discussion of confounding diagnoses as almost irrelevant.

The most fundamental flaw in Dr. Shoemaker's Tier 2 analysis was that not one of his biomarker tests is generally accepted or clinically validated for the purpose of diagnosing “mold illness.” Additionally, the idea that levels of these biomarkers five years after an exposure is in any way related to that exposure is unsupported by generally accepted science.

General Causation

Shoemaker arrived at his opinions on general and specific causation based on novel and unaccepted theories and methodologies. Plaintiffs’ general causation evidence confronted the problem that there was no way of knowing what substance the plaintiffs were in fact exposed to, as Dr. Shoemaker freely admitted he did not know what molds or bacteria were present in plaintiffs' apartment. Second, his own peer-reviewed publication on “mold illness” was far too limited to stand alone as proof of general causation; only twenty-six subjects participated in the study, and the double-blinded, placebo-controlled clinical trial involved only thirteen of those subjects.

Specific Causation

On specific causation, in short, Shoemaker did not perform his five-step protocol on plaintiffs, and indeed could not possibly have done so, as he first met them long after they left the suspected mold environment. Nor was he able to base his causation opinion on the plaintiffs' response to treatment, for both plaintiffs chose not to take the medication that he had prescribed for them. 
 

Defendants did an outstanding job of holding plaintiff's expert to the standards he himself created, but could not attain.

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