In re TMI Litigation Consol. Proceedings

• Decision Date: 12 June 1996
• Docket Number: Civil Action No. 1:CV-88-1452.
• Parties: In re TMI LITIGATION CONSOLIDATED PROCEEDINGS. This Document Relates to All Plaintiffs.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Middle District of Pennsylvania

927 F. Supp. 834

In re TMI LITIGATION CONSOLIDATED PROCEEDINGS.

This Document Relates to All Plaintiffs.

Civil Action No. 1:CV-88-1452.

United States District Court, M.D. Pennsylvania.

June 7, 1996.

As Corrected June 12, 1996.

Arnold Levin, Philadelphia, PA, Lee C. Swartz, Hepford, Swartz & Morgan, Harrisburg, PA, for Levin — 1706 plaintiffs.

Dusan Bratic, Bratic & Portko, Dillsburg, PA, Louis M. Tarasi, Jr., Tarasi & Johnson, P.C., Pittsburgh, PA, for Tarasi — 350 plaintiffs.

Peter J. Neeson, LaBrum & Doak, Philadelphia, PA, for Neeson — 4 plaintiffs.

Robert S. Mirin, Harrisburg, PA, for Mirin — 1 plaintiff.

Shawn A. Bozarth, Harrisburg, PA, for Bozarth — 1 plaintiff.

Joseph D. Shein, Philadelphia, PA, for Shein — 2 plaintiffs.

Alfred H. Wilcox, Pepper, Hamilton and Scheetz, Philadelphia, PA, Fred Speaker, Camp Hill, PA, for General Public Utilities Corp., Babcock & Wilcox Company, J. Ray McDermott & Company, Catalytic, Inc., Burns & Roe, Inc., Dresser Industries, Inc.

Alfred H. Wilcox, Pepper, Hamilton and Scheetz, Philadelphia, PA, Lewis S. Kunkel, Jr., Pepper, Hamilton & Scheetz, Harrisburg, PA, Fred Speaker, Camp Hill, PA, for General Public Utilities Corporation, Babcock

& Wilcox Company, Pennsylvania Electric Company, Jersey Central Power & Light Co., Metropolitan Edison Company, McDermott Incorporated, Raytheon Constructors Inc., Burns and Roe Enterprises, Inc., Dresser Industrial Valve and Instrument Division of Dresser Industries, Inc.

Charles B. Zwally, Mette, Evans & Woodside, Harrisburg, PA, Michael D. Reed, Mette, Evans & Woodside, Harrisburg, PA, Augustine V. Cheng, Associate General Counsel, Office of the General Counsel Columbia University, New York City, for George Colbert.

                                             TABLE OF CONTENTS
                I. Background ............................................................... 838
                   A. Procedural History .................................................... 838
                   B. Scientific Background ................................................. 839
                       1. Basic Concepts of Radiation ....................................... 840
                       2. Radiation Exposure and Dose ....................................... 840
                          a. Background Radiation ........................................... 840
                          b. Quantifying Dose/Dose Reconstruction ........................... 841
                          c. Risk Assessment ................................................ 844
                       3. Principles Relevant to a Nuclear Reactor Accident ................. 845
                          a. Pressurized Water Reactors ..................................... 845
                          b. Plume Dispersion ............................................... 847
                    C. Factual Background ................................................... 848
                II. Legal Standards ......................................................... 849
                III. Discussion ............................................................. 850
                     A. The Defendants' Case ................................................ 850
                         1. Exposure/Dose Evidence .......................................... 850
                         2. Health Effects .................................................. 856
                     B. The Plaintiffs' Case ................................................ 857
                         1. Exposure/Dose Evidence .......................................... 857
                         2. Medical Causation Evidence ...................................... 862
                     C. Plaintiffs' Burden of Proof ......................................... 863
                     D. Application of the Law to the Facts of this Case .................... 866
                         1. Were Plaintiffs Exposed to Radiation Released From TMI During
                             the Accident? .................................................. 866
                         2. Was Radiation the Cause of Plaintiffs' Injuries? ................ 866
                IV. Conclusion .............................................................. 870
                

MEMORANDUM

RAMBO, Chief Judge.

On March 28, 1979, a nuclear incident occurred at the Unit 2 reactor of the Three Mile Island nuclear power facility in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania. Among other things, the incident spawned the instant litigation¹ which has been pending on the court's docket for one decade longer than all but one case on the court's docket.² Due in significant part to the tremendous amount of time and effort expended by the parties and the court over the past year, ten test cases were finally scheduled for trial beginning in June.³ In January and April of this year, the court issued a series of Daubert rulings excluding the bulk of Plaintiffs' expert scientific testimony as scientifically unreliable. In re TMI Cases Consol. II, 166 F.R.D. 8 (M.D.Pa.1996) (granting in part Defendants' motions in limine to exclude Plaintiffs' medical causation experts); id. 922 F.Supp. 1038 (M.D.Pa.1996) (same); id. 922 F.Supp. 997 (M.D.Pa.1996) (granting in part Defendants' motions in limine to exclude Plaintiffs' dose and medical causation experts); id. 910 F.Supp. 200 (M.D.Pa.1996) (granting in part Defendants' motion in limine to exclude Plaintiffs' dose experts); id. 911 F.Supp. 775 (M.D.Pa.1996) (same). Defendants now move for summary judgment.⁴ The parties have briefed the issues and Defendants' motion is ripe for disposition. Before reaching the merits of Defendants' motion, however, the court must first address the subsidiary yet important issue of to whom the court's summary judgment ruling will apply. Defendants argue that based upon the way in which they have framed their motion, any ruling by the court should be binding upon all Plaintiffs. Conversely, Plaintiffs argue that the ruling should bind only the test Plaintiffs.

To resolve this issue, the court refers back to its memorandum and accompanying order dated June 15, 1993. Through that order the court adopted Plaintiffs' proposed case management plan and "test plaintiff" approach, and rejected Defendants' case management plan and "track litigation" approach. In its discussion of Plaintiffs' proposed plan, the court noted the following:

Plaintiffs claim that this initial trial would provide a basis for the parties realistically to evaluate their respective cases and promote settlement of this action. Defendants contend that "the `test-case' approach does not portend to resolve anything except the test cases selected." Therefore, Defendants assert that the initial twelve-Plaintiff⁵ trial would not promote settlement or be otherwise useful.

In re TMI Cases Consolidated II, No. 1:CV-88-1452, mem. op. at 26 (M.D.Pa. June 15, 1993) (footnote added). Defendants now argue that "the fact that the court has scheduled trial for ten `test case' plaintiffs does not mean that all the pretrial consolidated proceedings, designated with the caption `All Plaintiffs,'⁶ should ... be regarded retrospectively as applicable only to those `test case' plaintiffs." (Defs.' Reply Mem. at 26.) Indeed, the purpose of consolidating an action pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 42(a) is to streamline and economize pretrial proceedings so as to avoid duplication of effort, and to prevent conflicting outcomes in cases involving similar legal and factual issues. See In re Prudential Securities Incorporated Ltd. Partnerships Litigation, 158 F.R.D. 562, 571 (S.D.N.Y.1994); Bank of Montreal v. Eagle Associates, 117 F.R.D. 530, 533 (S.D.N.Y.1987).

The court finds that resolution of the issue before it turns on the grounds upon which the court ultimately grants or denies summary judgment. Defendants are correct that to the extent the ruling turns on broad evidentiary issues common to all Plaintiffs, the ruling will be binding upon all Plaintiffs. Likewise, Plaintiffs are correct that insofar as a ruling is based upon a more narrow, Plaintiff-specific inquiry, the ruling will apply only to certain Plaintiffs. The court's reading of documents related to the June 15, 1993 order, in conjunction with subsequent case management orders and evidentiary rulings, indicates that discovery and evidentiary matters were to proceed on an "All Plaintiffs" basis. A contrary intention or result would obviate all benefits of having consolidated the many separate actions. Each Plaintiff's case depends upon expert testimony to prove both exposure and medical causation. Expert discovery is complete, and all expert reports have been filed. Thus, to the extent that the expert testimony of record fails to meet the test Plaintiffs' evidentiary burden at this stage of the litigation, it will fail to meet the same burden as to every Plaintiff. It would be an exercise in futility and a waste of valuable resources to allow the many separate actions consolidated under this caption to proceed if it were clear that the cases could not withstand a motion for summary judgment. Under such circumstances, the court's summary judgment ruling would be applicable to all Plaintiffs.⁷

In accordance with the discussion that follows, the court will grant Defendants' motion for summary judgment on the ground that Plaintiffs have failed to present evidence sufficient to create a material factual dispute on the issue of dose, and therefore, have failed to state their prima facie case. Because the court finds the quantum of Plaintiffs' expert evidence on the issue of dose to be insufficient, and because no Plaintiff will be able to state a prima facie case without adequate dose evidence, the instant ruling is binding upon all Plaintiffs.

I. Background

A. Procedural History

The consolidated claims in this case were initially filed shortly after the TMI incident in the state and federal courts of Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Mississippi. Since the initial filings, these cases have traveled to and from the Supreme Court, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, and several district courts on numerous occasions. Moreover, jurisdictional questions related to these actions prompted Congress to amend the Price Anderson Act to ensure federal court jurisdiction, see S.Rep. 100-218, 100th...