A U.S. appeals court yesterday handed 3M, Corteva Inc. subsidiary E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Co. and other manufacturers of toxic so-called "forever chemicals" a big win in their fight against legal liability for the substances, rejecting a lower court's ruling that would have allowed about 11.8 million Ohio residents to sue the companies as a group, Reuters reported. The Cincinnati, Ohio-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit vacated a lower court's approval of the massive class action, which included virtually every resident of Ohio and put considerable legal pressure on the chemical manufacturers to settle the plaintiffs' claims. The court found lead plaintiff Kevin Hardwick filed too broad a complaint against the manufacturers, and had not shown per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, found in his body could be traced directly to the defendants such as units of 3M, DuPont and others. The court said that Hardwick's complaint “rarely” targeted the actions of any one company, and instead accused the companies collectively of contaminating the environment with the chemicals.
