The Fifth Circuit recently handed down another decision on issues of federal subject matter jurisdiction under CAFA for pollution claims. In Robertson v. Exxon Mobil Corp., No. 15-30920, 2015 WL 9592499 (5th Cir. Dec. 31, 2015) over one hundred individual Plaintiff’s filed suit in Orleans Parish Civil District Court against a host of defendants for alleged environmental contamination by naturally occurring radioactive materials caused by oil field pipe cleaning operations at a facility in Harvey, Louisiana. The defendants removed to federal court under CAFA’s mass action provision, but the Plaintiff’s filed and won a motion to remand the matter back to state court on the grounds that defendant had failed to show that any individual Plaintiff’s claim exceeded the $75,000 amount in controversy requirement. In its reasons for granting the Motion to Remand, the district court noted the defendants offered no evidence to show the amount in controversy was met except for the Plaintiff’s responses to written discovery.
On appeal the Fifth Circuit overturned the district court’s decision and found the Plaintiff’s written responses to discovery enough to show the amount in controversy was met. The Court noted that the Plaintiffs’ suit claimed a wide variety of harms caused by the NORM exposure, including restitution from one of the defendants who had already obtained a nine damages award in a separate suit related to the contamination. In their written discovery responses the Plaintiff’s listed an itemized table detailing each Plaintiff’s claims, which included two claiming the NORM contamination had caused themselves or their loved ones to contract cancer. The Fifth Circuit held that common sense dictates that claims such as these place more than $75,000 at stake, reversed the lower court’s decision on the Motion to Remand and sent the case back for adjudication of other challenges by the Plaintiffs to federal jurisdiction.
Unfortunately, Louisiana is no stranger to class action and mass-joinder suits arising from chemical exposure and pollution. Claims related to the contraction of cancer and other diseases are common in these types of cases, and the Fifth Circuit’s decision in Robertson should prove helpful in showing CAFA’s amount in controversy requirement is met in future litigation.
Author: Tripp DuBose