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SRA
Risk Science & Law Specialty Group |
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| 1999-2000
Online Casebook (Second Edition)
Redland Soccer Club v. Dept. of Army of U.S. Should an inference of individual causation require a proven causal connection between a specified toxic exposure and a specified injury or disease, or can a sufficient statistical association support a causation argument with reasonable scientific certainty? Can a one-in-a-million regulatory risk threshold used by the EPA be adopted as a uniform basis for distinguishing an insignificant health risk? The Army used a landfill as a dump for toxic waste until the 1950s. Subsequently, it transferred the site to the adjoining township for public recreational use. The township was not informed about the toxic waste. Later the township created a park for use as soccer fields. Plaintiffs in Redland Soccer Club (55 F.3d 82, 3rd Cir. 1995) included township workers, people living near the landfill, and children who played on the soccer fields, including two children who suffered from leukemia or enlarged lymph nodes. Testing of ground water, soil and sediment showed a significant presence of organic and inorganic contaminants. The government concluded there was no apparent increase in health risk to children playing in the park; contaminant concentrations were within acceptable limits under federal environmental laws. Plaintiffs sought medical monitoring costs, alleging increased risk of adverse health effects from exposure to landfill contaminants. The trial court dismissed the medical monitoring claims. On appeal, the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit held that plaintiffs failed to introduce evidence that their exposure required a different medical monitoring regimen than normally recommended for the general population. The appellate court stated that a plaintiff seeking medical monitoring must experience direct, individual exposure to a toxic substance at a level beyond what would normally be encountered by a person in everyday life. However, plaintiff children who played on the soccer fields and suffered from leukemia or enlarged lymph nodes, whose physical injuries made them a unique class, were not to be excluded from medical monitoring. The children's illnesses reflected an immediate need for medical monitoring beyond that recommended for the general population. The children's physician reached an opinion supporting causation with a reasonable degree of medical certainty as required by Pennsylvania case law. But the defense claimed that finding the children's illnesses were "related to," rather than "caused by," any toxic exposure failed to show a causal connection. The court found, however, that Pennsylvania law does not require that expert testimony on causation include any "magic words" such as "caused by," rather than "related to." According to risk calculations, those who used the soccer fields for 33 hours or more were exposed to toxicants that increased their chances of acquiring cancer or other illness beyond the one-in-a-million risk benchmark used by the EPA to represent significant risk. Although that risk threshold does not appear in a formal statutory history, the court decided to recognize and defer to it because it seemed "ubiquitous" in regulatory determinations despite its indeterminate pedigree. The Redland decision adopts a flexible interpretation of causality not to exclude statistical associations as a legitimate basis for an inference of cause and effect, and it legitimizes a long established regulatory rule-of-thumb on de minimis risk. [Contributed by Michael McMenamin/Edited by Wayne Roth-Nelson] |
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