William Rhodes v. E I du Pont de Nemours and Co, No. 10-1166 (4th Cir. 2011)
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Plaintiffs filed a complaint against defendant asserting six common law claims, individually and on behalf of a class of customers of the Parkersburg City Water Department, related to the contamination of their municipal water supply and the resulting presence of perflurooctanoic acid in their blood. At issue was whether plaintiffs demonstrated an injury sufficient to survive summary judgment on certain West Virgina common law tort claims. Also at issue was whether the district court erred in denying class certification. Further at issue was whether plaintiffs, who obtained voluntary dismissals in the district court of their individual claims for medical monitoring, have standing to pursue an appeal of the district court's denial of class certification of those claims. The court held that summary judgment was proper on all plaintiffs' traditional common law tort claims, namely, the claims of negligence, gross negligence, battery, trespass, private nuisance, and public nuisance. The court also held that it did not need to address the separate matter of the district court's denial of class certification as these issues were now moot. The court further held that it lacked jurisdiction to decide the district court's denial of plaintiffs' class certification regarding their medical monitoring claims.
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