“RALEIGH — Lawyers in a class action lawsuit against Chemours and DuPont on Friday claimed the chemical companies “are once again playing fast and loose with the law and the truth” in a response to their motion to dismiss the lawsuit centered around the chemical GenX and others like it.
‘The issues they have raised are deficient in many different ways, which are addressed in our papers. They attack our complaint on several different aspects, all of which we don’t believe are supported in the law, and that’s what we address,’ said Ted Leopold, the lead lawyer for the plaintiffs.
In early March, Chemours and E.I. DuPont de Nemours and Company filed a motion to dismiss the case. Among the reasons outlined by Chemours were that the plaintiffs allegedly failed to prove any of their asserted claims and also failed to establish causation of alleged personal injuries outlined in the initial complaint. The case was filed in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina.
‘To be actionable … a discharge of chemicals must cause the plaintiff to suffer actual harm,’ Chemours and DuPont’s lawyers wrote on March 2. ‘This requirement dooms Plaintiffs’ complaint, which is long on accusations of deception and misconduct (accusations that Defendants strongly deny), but short on assertions of cognizable injury or causation.’
In a section of Friday’s filing addressing the medical conditions of the four people representing the legal class, the response said the bar for causation is, at this point, very low. Rather than establishing causation, the document said, they must simply put forth enough facts to allow the court to infer that the chemicals caused the injuries…
Another ongoing debate in the case is whether the plaintiff will be able to sample wastewater from Chemours to determine what chemicals have historically been discharged there. In late November, with a deadline looming, Chemours agreed to cease all GenX and Nafion wastewater discharges.”
Read the full article by Adam Wagner