203 F.3d 1190 (10th Cir. 2000), 99-1178, Dodge v. Cotter Corp.
| Citation | 203 F.3d 1190 |
| Party Name | JOSEPH DODGE, individually and as personal representative of the Estate of Thelma Dodge; ROCKY MOUNTAIN EQUESTRIAN CENTER, INC.; PATRICK SHANE DODGE; CONNIE DODGE; NATHAN DODGE, LESLIE DODGE, BRYAN DODGE, and PATRICK DODGE, minors, by and through their parents and next friends, Patrick Shane Dodge and Connie Dodge; YVONNE PEGARARO; NOAH WELCH, and |
| Case Date | February 11, 2000 |
| Court | United States Courts of Appeals, U.S. Court of Appeals — Tenth Circuit |
Page 1190
APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLORADO. D.C. No. 91-Z-1861
Page 1192
John L. Watson (Marsha M. Piccone, W. David Byassee, and Mark T. Barnes with him on the briefs), Freeborn & Peters, Denver, Colorado, for Defendant-Appellant.
Suzelle M. Smith (Don Howarth with her on the briefs), Howarth & Smith, Los Angeles, California, for Plaintiffs-Appellees.
Before BALDOCK, PORFILIO, and MURPHY, Circuit Judges.
PORFILIO, Senior Circuit Judge.
In 1958, Cotter Corporation, a subsidiary of the Commonwealth Edison Company of Illinois, began operating a uranium mill near Canon City, Colorado, extracting uranium from ore by an alkaline leach process. The two types of waste produced by that process, tailings, dust-like particles of ore, and raffinate, liquid recovered from the uranium extraction solutions, eventually contaminated the area, including the semi-rural community of Lincoln Park, and triggered its designation as a Superfund site on the EPA's National Priority List. Subsequently, some five hundred Lincoln Park residents filed an action under the Comprehensive Environmental Response Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA), 42 U.S.C. §§a9601-9675, the Price-Anderson Act, 42 U.S.C. §a2210(n)(2), and Colorado law alleging Cotter's negligent operation of the mill caused damage to their health and property. After class certification was denied, eight plaintiffs, selected for the first trial, convinced a jury Cotter was negligent in operating the mill but failed to establish its negligence caused their exposure to hazardous materials which required future medical monitoring.
Now before us is a second group of fourteen plaintiffs who, armed with the first jury's finding of negligence, established Cotter's negligence caused their physical injuries and were awarded monetary damages. Cotter assails the judgment on numerous grounds, and plaintiffs cross-appeal. Of the many issues Cotter raised, one predominates. After careful review of this ponderous record, we conclude
Page 1193
the district court incorrectly applied the doctrine of offensive collateral estoppel, precluding Cotter from litigating the issue of negligence. For the single issue remaining in plaintiffs' cross-appeal, whether the district court properly granted summary judgment dismissal of their fear of cancer claim, we reject the contention of error. We, therefore, reverse the judgment and remand the action for retrial.
I. Background
The Cotter uranium mill (the Mill) occupies a 640-acre site in south central Colorado, two and a half miles south of Canon City. Lincoln Park, an unincorporated area, is a mile and a half north of the Mill. The Arkansas River borders Lincoln Park's northern rim while Sand Creek and the DeWeese Dye Ditch angle across its southern perimeters. During its years of operation crushing ore into "yellowcake," a concentrated uranium,1 dry tailings were carried off-site by winds. Liquids, recovered from the uranium extraction solutions and stored in unlined ponds, leached into groundwater beneath the Mill and flowed north toward Lincoln Park along the Sand Creek channel.
As early as 1959, the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), which then regulated uranium production operations at the Mill, notified Cotter of violations of the conditions of its license. Annual violations of AEC standards of Protection Against Radiation occurred through 1968 when the state of Colorado (the State) took over responsibility from the AEC for licensing radioactive materials. In the meantime, Cotter's production rose from 50 tons of uranium a day in 1958 to 1200 tons a day in 1979, when the State relicensed the Mill.
In an effort to clean up the site, both the EPA and the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (Department) targeted the Mill's unlined storage ponds as a primary source of the proliferation of such hazardous substances as uranium, molybdenum, thorium, radium, selenium, arsenic, and lead. By 1981, Cotter had closed eight unlined ponds and constructed two new tailings facilities sealed with an eighteen inch hypalon liner overlaid with six inches of clay.2 Later, Cotter added a clay barrier to the Sand Creek Dam to prevent water flow from the Mill into Lincoln Park. Despite these efforts, state inspections would reveal tears in the ponds' linings or violations of air emissions standards. Although Cotter ceased operating the Mill in 1987, the Department projected the clean-up would not be completed until 2012.3
In 1983, after persistent and unabated violations, the State sued Cotter in federal court for damages to natural resources and clean-up of the contamination. State of Colorado v. Cotter Corp., Case. No. 83-C-2389. In 1988, the parties settled the matter by a Consent Decree which provided a Remedial Action Plan (Plan). The Plan required the creation of the Human Health Risk Assessment Panel (Panel) which prepared a report in 1991 on the Lincoln Park Superfund Site evaluating the health risks to the surrounding populations from the Mill's off-site chemical releases. The Panel quantified exposures to Mill-related chemicals in air, surface water, sediment, ground water, soil, and different types of locally raised food; measured the toxicity of the exposures; and assessed the possible health risks based on those evaluations. The Panel concluded "risks to humans were generally low, especially when judged in comparison to natural 'background' levels of mill-related metals in the environment." However, the Panel excepted from that conclusion a possible health concern in drinking ground water "because of the
Page 1194
presence of molybdenum (and, to a lesser extent, uranium) in the water."
II. Boughton Trial
In 1989, some five hundred residents and property owners living in Lincoln Park, Brookside, a community east of the Mill, and Canon City (collectively, Lincoln Park) filed suit in federal court. In an amended complaint, Lincoln Park plaintiffs requested statutory relief under CERCLA and sought damages exceeding $350 million for Cotter's negligence, strict liability, nuisance, willful and wanton conduct, outrageous conduct, trespass, and absolute liability. In addition, plaintiffs requested damages and injunctive relief for medical monitoring. Although plaintiffs sought class certification, the district court held the action was not maintainable under Fed. R. Civ. P. 23(a) because individual issues predominated over common issues of law or fact. The parties then agreed to the selection of eight bellwether plaintiffs (Boughton plaintiffs) for the first trial.
The Boughton plaintiffs did not allege any physical illnesses or injuries. Instead, they claimed they and their property were exposed to hazardous substances from the Cotter Mill and sought damages for trespass to real estate; damages for nuisance; and medical monitoring based on negligence.
At the close of the evidence after a twenty-three day trial, the court framed the issues for the jury to decide with the parties' claims and defenses. It instructed the jury, in part, "The plaintiffs claim that they and their properties have been exposed to radioactive and hazardous contamination as a result of Cotter's milling operation. They assert that this contamination has significantly increased their risk of health problems, and that they are therefore entitled to medical monitoring." Although the Boughton plaintiffs did not claim their exposure to hazardous substances caused physical injuries, they contended medical monitoring of the possible adverse effects of the exposures was required. For Cotter's theory of defense, the court told the jury,
Cotter admits that its operations have caused some ground water contamination by radioactive and molybdenum materials in certain limited areas, but Cotter states that the contamination has been and is now being cleaned up pursuant to a government-supervised Remedial Action Plan. Cotter claims that it did not engage in any conduct nor breach any legal standard for which it would be liable to plaintiffs.
The court then instructed the jury on...
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Bellwether Trials: A Defense Perspective
...("We recognize that the results of the Hanford bellwether trial are not binding on the remaining plaintiffs."); Dodge v. Cotter Corp., 203 F.3d 1190, 1199 (10th Cir. 2000) ("[T]here is no indication in the record before us that the parties understood the first trial would decide specific is......