DuPont seeks US Supreme Court review after $40 million PFAS cancer verdict

June 30, 2023

Read the full article by Clark Mindock (Reuters)

"DuPont de Nemours Inc. on Friday asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review whether a lower court inappropriately hamstrung its defense during trial over claims that its chemicals caused cancer.

DuPont told the justices that it was improperly barred from disputing “key elements of liability” at the trial, which led to a $40 million verdict, on the grounds that three similar cases had already determined the company negligently exposed people to per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS.

The issues were barred under a version of a legal doctrine called collateral estoppel that is intended to stop the same set of facts from being litigated repeatedly.

The case involves an Ohio man, Travis Abbott, who claimed exposure to PFAS in his water caused him to get testicular cancer twice. DuPont said the results in the three previous trials were never intended to be representative of his case or thousands of other personal injury PFAS lawsuits filed against the company."