DuPont, Chemours Will Pay $671M To Settle PFOA Contaminated Water Lawsuits

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DuPont and Chemours have agreed to pay $671 million to settle 3,550 lawsuits in Ohio and West Virginia by residents who say they were sickened by drinking water contaminated by perfluorooctanoic acid released from a former DuPont plant in Parkersburg, West Virginia more than a decade ago.

DuPont and Chemours, a DuPont spin-off that now owns the plant, will each pay $335 million of the settlement.

In addition, Chemours will pay up to $25 million over each of the next five years for any future liabilities from PFOA, also known as C8, which was used as a processing agent until 2015 to make fluoropolymers such as Teflon. DuPont will cover future liabilities up to an additional $25 million per year.

The deal follows a 2014 class action lawsuit settlement in which Dupont and Chemours established a medical monitoring program for those exposed to PFOA chemicals as a result of contaminated water from the West Virginia plant.

“This is a tremendous positive step toward resolving this litigation in a way that provides compensation for our injured clients without the need for additional, lengthy, and expensive trials,” Rob Bilott of Taft Stettinius & Hollister LLP, co-lead counsel for plaintiffs steering committee, stated. “We look forward to working with DuPont to finalize this settlement and get these injured class members paid as quickly as possible.”

More than 3,500 federal and state lawsuits allege that the DuPont Co. Washington Works plant, near Parkersburg dumped PFOA into the Ohio River, contaminating the local drinking water and causing illness and disease, including cancer.

To date, seven of the 3,550 PFOA cases have gone to trial. Three of them yielded nearly $20 million in total jury awards to plaintiffs. Three cases were settled for an undisclosed amount and one was dropped. The last trial, completed in January, awarded Kenneth Vigneron, who had testicular cancer, $12.5 million. DuPont has appealed that award and the two others.

“The really sad part of this whole mess is that it would have cost DuPont almost nothing to properly dispose of the C8 waste in a safe manner instead of irresponsibly dumping it in the river, pumping it into the ground, and spewing it up into the air,” the firm said. “DuPont’s conduct was egregious — dumping the chemical into community water sources with full knowledge that it would likely cause cancer and other diseases among the residents.”

David C. Shelton, counsel representing Chemours, stated that the settlement provides a resolution for residents, the company and the public.

“It settles all indemnification obligations … and allows us to move forward with a renewed focus on our customers, product innovation and application development,” Shelton said.

Had the parties not come to an agreement, U.S. District Judge Edmund Sargus had promised to send 40 of the cancer cases to trial in 2017, and as of January, trial dates for 10 of the lawsuits had been scheduled.

The plaintiffs are represented by Archie Lamb of The Lamb Firm LLC, Harry Deitzler, James Peterson and R. Edison Hill of Hill Peterson Carper Bee & Deitzler PLLC, Larry Winter of Winter & Johnson PLLC, Alicia Ellsayed, Gary Douglas and Rebecca Newman of Douglas & London PC, Christopher Paulos, James M. Papantonio, Jeff Gaddy, Timothy O’Brien and Wesley Bowden of Levin Papantonio Thomas Mitchell Rafferty & Proctor PA, David Butler of Taft Stettinius & Hollister LLP and Shannon Pennock of The Pennock Law Firm. The plaintiffs steering committee is led by Michael London of Douglas & London, Robert Bilott of Taft Stettinius & Hollister and Jon Conlin of Cory Watson PC.

The DuPont, Chemours PFOA Contamination Lawsuits are Moody v. DuPont, Case No. 2:15-cv-00803, and In re: E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Co. C-8 Personal Injury Litigation, Case No. 2:13-md-02433, both in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio.