Source: http://www.leagle.com/decision/In%20FCO%2020130501105
Timestamp: 2014-07-28 12:21:14
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Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 214', '§ 213', '§ 214', '§ 214', '§ 213', '§ 214', '§ 213', '§ 213', '§ 213', '§ 214', '§ 213', '§ 214', '§ 203', '§ 214']

CARONIA v. PHILIP MORRIS USA, INC. | Leagle.com Home
Citing Case CARONIA v. PHILIP MORRIS USA, INC.Docket No. 11-0316-cv. 715 F.3d 417 (2013) Marcia L. CARONIA, Linda McAuley, and Arlene Feldman, Plaintiffs-Appellants,
Argued: March 1, 2012.Decided: May 1, 2013. Victoria E. Phillips, New York, N.Y. (Steven J. Phillips, Stanley J. Levy, Jerome H. Block, Amber R. Long, Lisa W. Davis, Levy Phillips & Konigsberg, New York, NY, on the brief), for Plaintiffs-Appellants.Sheila Birnbaum, New York, N.Y. (John H. Beisner, Jessica D. Miller, Geoffrey M. Wyatt, Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom Washington, D.C.; Gary R. Long, John K. Sherk, III, Shook, Hardy & Bacon, Kansas City, MO; Tammy B. Webb, Shook, Hardy & Bacon, San Francisco, CA, on the brief), for Defendant-Appellee.Before KEARSE, LOHIER, and DRONEY, Circuit Judges. KEARSE, Circuit Judge:
Plaintiffs Marcia L. Caronia, Linda McAuley, and Arlene Feldman appeal from a judgment of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York, Carol Bagley Amon, Judge, dismissing their tort claims alleging negligence, strict products liability, and breach of the Uniform Commercial Code ("UCC") implied warranty of merchantability in connection with the design, manufacture, and sale by defendant Philip Morris USA, Inc. ("Philip Morris"), of cigarettes that allegedly contain unnecessarily dangerous levels of carcinogens when smoked by humans, and their independent equitable claim seeking to require Philip Morris to fund a program of medical monitoring for longtime smokers of Marlboro cigarettes who have not been diagnosed with, but are at risk for, lung cancer. The district court granted Philip Morris's motions for summary judgment dismissing plaintiffs' negligence and strict liability claims on the ground that they were untimely, and dismissing the breach-of-implied-warranty claims on the grounds that plaintiffs' earliest such claims were untimely, see Caronia v. Philip Morris USA, Inc., No. 06-CV-224, 2010 WL 520558 (E.D.N.Y. Feb. 11, 2010) ("Caronia I"), and that the timely warranty claims were not supported by sufficient evidence of breach, see Caronia v. Philip Morris USA, Inc., No. 06-CV-224, 2011 WL 338425 (E.D.N.Y. Jan. 13, 2011) ("Caronia II"). Pursuant to Fed. R.Civ.P. 12(b)(6), the court granted Philip Morris's motion to dismiss plaintiffs' free-standing claim for medical monitoring of Marlboro smokers who lack symptoms of smoking-related disease, ruling that plaintiffs failed to state a claim on which relief can be granted because they could not sufficiently plead that their injuries — i.e., their increased risk of cancer from smoking Marlboro cigarettes — were proximately caused by Philip Morris's conduct. See Caronia II. On appeal, plaintiffs contend principally that their negligence and products liability claims are timely and that they adequately pleaded proximate cause in their claims for breach of implied warranty and in their independent claim for medical monitoring. For the reasons that follow, we affirm the dismissal of plaintiffs' negligence, strict liability, and breach-of-warranty claims; with respect to plaintiff's free-standing equitable claim for medical monitoring, we certify several questions, detailed in Part III below, to the Court of Appeals for the State of New York with respect to the existence of such a claim under New York State law, and, if such a claim is recognized, as to the elements and accrual of such a claim.
I.  BACKGROUND.....................................................................420
A.  Plaintiff's' Negligence, Strict Liability, and Warranty Claims.............420
B.  The Relief Requested.......................................................422
C.  Philip Morris's First Motion for Summary Judgment..........................422
1.  The Strict Products Liability and Negligence Claims....................422
2.  The Breach-of-Warranty Claims..........................................424
D.  Plaintiffs' Fourth Amended Complaint.......................................425
II.  DISMISSAL OF THE COMMON-LAW AND UCC CLAIMS.....................................427
A.  Untimeliness of the Negligence and Strict Liability Claims.................428
1.  The Continuing Exposure Theory.........................................429
2.  The Newly-Available Relief Theory......................................431
B.  Summary Dismissal of the Breach of Implied Warranty Claims.................433
III.  MEDICAL MONITORING AS AN INDEPENDENT CLAIM.....................................434
A.  Decisions of New York State Courts.........................................434
B.  Decisions by Federal District Courts in New York...........................437
C.  Decisions by Other States' Highest Courts..................................438
D.  Elements of an Independent Medical Monitoring Cause of Action .............446
E.  Certification of Questions to the New York Court of Appeals................449
CONCLUSION...........................................................................450
Plaintiffs, who commenced this action on January 19, 2006, seeking to pursue it as a class action, are residents of New York State ("State") who, within the State, smoked Marlboro cigarettes — defined in plaintiffs' pleadings as the entire line of cigarettes manufactured and sold by Philip Morris under the "Marlboro" brand. The claims at issue on this appeal are those asserted in plaintiffs' Third Amended Complaint (or "3rd Am. Comp.") and Fourth Amended Complaint (or "4th Am. Comp.") (collectively the "Complaints").
A. Plaintiffs' Negligence, Strict Liability, and Warranty Claims
Plaintiffs are persons age 50 years or older who currently smoke Marlboro cigarettes, or ceased smoking them within one year prior to the commencement of this lawsuit, and smoked Marlboro cigarettes for at least 20 pack-years. (See 4th Am. Comp. ¶¶ 22-27; 3rd Am. Comp. ¶¶ 23-28.) A "pack[-]year" is defined in the Complaints as "the number of packs of cigarettes smoked per day multiplied by the number of years," e.g., one pack of cigarettes per day for one year equals one pack-year, and two packs per day equal two pack-years. (4th Am. Comp. ¶ 26, n.2; 3rd Am. Comp. ¶ 27, n.2.) "None of the plaintiffs is presently diagnosed with lung cancer" (4th Am. Comp. ¶ 28; 3rd Am. Comp. ¶ 29) "or under investigation by a physician for suspected lung cancer" (Complaints ¶ 1(e).) Plaintiffs contend, however, that lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer deaths in the United States and is responsible for the deaths of 160,000 Americans annually (see id. ¶ 4); that more than 80 percent of those deaths result from cigarette smoke (see id. ¶ 5); and that plaintiffs "are at significantly increased risk for developing lung cancer as a consequence of their use of Marlboro cigarettes ... specifically as a consequence of the excess quantities of carcinogens delivered by Marlboro cigarettes" (4th Am. Comp. ¶ 29; 3rd Am. Comp. ¶ 30).
The Complaints alleged that, during the relevant time period, Marlboro cigarettes regularly delivered between 6 and 17 milligrams of tar (see Complaints ¶ 53), a substance that "contains carcinogens which cause lung cancer" (id. ¶ 47), despite the existence of feasible alternatives for the manufacture of cigarettes delivering one milligram of tar or less (see id. ¶ 61). The Complaints alleged that Philip Morris had the ability to employ "feasible alternative designs which would have drastically reduced the cancer causing content of Marlboro cigarettes" (id. ¶ 18), such as by switching to a tobacco blend that would reduce or eliminate the quantity of "Burley" tobacco — known to contain high levels of cancer-causing nitrosamines — used in Philip Morris cigarettes (id. ¶¶ 64-67).
The Complaints also alleged that although smokers had been found by independent agencies to have a tendency to "compensate" for lower tar and nicotine levels in "light" cigarettes by taking "deeper, more intense" puffs (Complaints ¶ 56; see id. ¶ 57), Philip Morris had the technological ability to use a filter that would thwart such tendencies and deliver low overall levels of carcinogens simply by increasing its cigarettes' "`resistance to draw'" (id. ¶ 60; see id. ¶¶ 61-64). Philip Morris nonetheless allegedly chose to market Marlboro "Light" cigarettes that were "intentionally designed to permit full compensation" (id. ¶ 60; see also id. ¶¶ 58-59), allowing smokers of Marlboro Light cigarettes to inhale "approximately the same amount of tar as delivered by regular Marlboro `Full Flavor' cigarettes" (id. ¶ 59).
Plaintiffs alleged that as a result of Philip Morris's voluntary, negligent, reckless, and/or intentional design of Marlboro cigarettes to deliver excessive amounts of carcinogens (see, e.g., 3rd Am. Comp. ¶¶ 86, 94), when it knew or should have known that such cigarettes caused lung cancer or increased the risk of lung cancer and thus were defective products not reasonably safe for their intended use (see id. ¶¶ 84-85), plaintiffs and members of the proposed class — "composed of at least tens of thousands of persons" (Complaints ¶ 35) — were placed at significantly increased risk of developing lung cancer (see 4th Am. Comp. ¶ 29; 3rd Am. Comp. ¶ 30). Plaintiffs contended that Philip Morris was (a) strictly liable for distributing its defective products (see 3rd Am. Comp. ¶¶ 80-90); (b) liable for negligence in failing to properly design, test, and inspect Marlboro cigarettes, thereby violating its "legal duty to create a reasonably `safer' cigarette which delivered substantially less carcinogens when smoked by a human" (3rd Am. Comp. ¶ 93; see id. ¶¶ 92-99); and (c) liable for breach of the UCC implied warranty of merchantability, as Marlboro cigarettes were not safe for the ordinary purposes intended by Philip Morris and used by Marlboro smokers (see 4th Am. Comp. ¶¶ 105-107; 3rd Am. Comp. ¶¶ 101, 112-113).
B. The Relief Requested
As relief for their claims of negligence, strict liability, and breach of warranty, plaintiffs stated that they did not seek compensatory or punitive damages but instead sought to have Philip Morris provide funding for a court-supervised program of medical monitoring for class members who are at increased risk of lung cancer from smoking Marlboro cigarettes (see, e.g., 3rd Am. Comp. ¶ 19).
Plaintiffs alleged that when lung cancer is diagnosed at an early stage, it is usually curable. (See Complaints ¶ 6.) But, they alleged, conventional forms of medical surveillance such as chest x-rays and sputum cytology are poor tools for identifying lung cancer at an early stage (see id. ¶ 9); hence, in the past, by the time the cancer was diagnosable, prospects for cure were usually dim (see id. ¶ 7). The Complaints alleged that a recently established (see id. ¶ 10) medical surveillance technique known as Low Dose CT Scanning of the chest ("`LDCT'"), "is a safe, efficacious and inexpensive technique, which, for the first time, provides a means to identify and diagnose lung cancers at an early stage, when they are still curable" (id. ¶ 3). LDCT can identify and lead to the diagnosis of Stage I lung cancers that previously would have remained undiagnosed until the cancer had reached an advanced, and likely incurable, stage. (See id. ¶ 10.) LDCT screening is currently unavailable as a benefit in most, if not all, private or public health insurance programs (see id. ¶ 15); the cost of LDCT is "a modest annual expense [of] less than five hundred ($500) dollars per patient per year[ ]" and involves "a lower dose of radiation than is associated with an annual mammogram" (3rd Am. Comp. ¶ 11).
C. Philip Morris's First Motion for Summary Judgment
After plaintiffs had filed their Third Amended Complaint and discovery had been completed, Philip Morris moved for summary judgment dismissing the action on statute-of-limitations and/or causation grounds. Plaintiffs opposed the motion and cross-moved for certification of their proposed class. The district court in Caronia I granted Philip Morris's motion to the extent of dismissing as untimely the negligence and strict liability claims in their entirety and the breach-of-warranty claims in part. The court denied Philip Morris's motion to the extent that the motion sought dismissal of the breach-of-warranty claims based on lack of evidence of proximate causation, and it reserved decision on the motion for class certification.
1. The Strict Products Liability and Negligence Claims
Philip Morris contended that plaintiffs' strict liability and negligence claims were essentially claims for damages and thus were barred by the three-year limitations period provided by New York Civil Practice Law & Rules ("CPLR") § 214-c(2), which applies to, inter alia, "an action to recover damages for personal injury ... caused by the latent effects of exposure to any substance or combination of substances, in any form." Plaintiffs argued, inter alia, that their claims were not for damages but for equitable relief, and that the applicable statute of limitations was thus the six-year period provided by CPLR § 213(1), which generally applies to actions seeking equitable relief, including injunctive relief, see, e.g., 2004 Commentary CPLR 213(1), or to actions for which no limitations period is specified.
The district court, noting that "[b]oth parties agree that the injury in this action is the increased risk of developing lung cancer as a result of smoking Marlboro cigarettes for twenty pack-years," concluded that plaintiffs' strict liability and negligence claims were untimely "under either statute." Caronia I, 2010 WL 520558, at *3. Under § 214-c(2), assuming that plaintiffs' claims were properly characterized as claims for damages, the statute of limitations would have begun "to run upon the `date of discovery' of the injury," Caronia I, 2010 WL 520558, at *3, i.e., the dates on which plaintiffs discovered that smoking Marlboro cigarettes increased their risk of lung cancer. The court noted that the record revealed that each of the plaintiffs was over the age of 50 when this suit was commenced in 2006, see id. at *1; that each had begun smoking as a teenager, see id.; that it was "undisputed that each of the named plaintiffs in this action reached twenty pack-years of smoking by the mid 1990s," Feldman by 1992, McAuley by approximately 1980, and Caronia by, at the latest, 1996, see id. at *5; and that the deposition "testimony of each plaintiff establishe[d her] awareness of an increased risk of cancer well before January 19, 2003," id. at *3; see also id. at *6 n. 10 ("Plaintiffs do not, and cannot, argue that they did not know smoking cigarettes was the cause of their increased risk of lung cancer."). Accordingly, the court concluded that if the three-year limitations period of § 214-c(2) applied, plaintiffs' strict liability and negligence claims were time-barred.
The district court also rejected plaintiffs' contention that those claims would be timely under CPLR § 213(1)'s six-year limitations period, i.e., that their claims accrued on or after January 19, 2000. The court pointed out that unlike the three-year statute of limitations provided in § 214-c(2), "the six-year statute of limitations under 213(1) begins to run" not on the date the injury is discovered but on the date the cause of action accrues, to wit, "`when all of the facts necessary to the cause of action have occurred so that the party would be entitled to obtain relief in court,'" Caronia I, 2010 WL 520558, at *3 (quoting Aetna Life & Casualty Co. v. Nelson, 67 N.Y.2d 169, 175, 501 N.Y.S.2d 313, 316, 492 N.E.2d 386 (1986)), "`i.e., when all elements of the tort can be truthfully alleged in a complaint,'" Caronia I, 2010 WL 520558, at *3 (quoting Snyder v. Town Insulation, Inc., 81 N.Y.2d 429, 432-33, 599 N.Y.S.2d 515, 516-17, 615 N.E.2d 999 (1993)).
The court described the elements of claims for strict liability and negligence. A plaintiff asserting a claim of strict liability must be able to show that she was injured, that the defendant produced a product that was not "`reasonably safe'" for its intended use, and that the product's "`defect was the proximate cause of the injury.'" Caronia I, 2010 WL 520558, at *4 (quoting Voss v. Black & Decker Manufacturing Co., 59 N.Y.2d 102, 107, 109, 463 N.Y.S.2d 398, 402, 403, 450 N.E.2d 204 (1983)). A plaintiff asserting a negligence claim must be able to show that "the defendant owed the plaintiff a cognizable duty of care," that "the defendant failed to exercise that duty," and that "the plaintiff suffered injury as a proximate result of that failure." Caronia I, 2010 WL 520558, at *4; see, e.g., Akins v. Glens Falls City School District, 53 N.Y.2d 325, 333, 441 N.Y.S.2d 644, 648, 424 N.E.2d 531 (1981); Becker v. Schwartz, 46 N.Y.2d 401, 410, 413 N.Y.S.2d 895, 899, 386 N.E.2d 807 (1978).
The district court rejected plaintiffs' contentions that their strict liability and negligence claims were timely under § 213(1) either (a) on the theory that such claims accrue anew with each newly injurious exposure, or (b) because the remedy they sought — medical monitoring via LDCT scanning — had only become an available and accepted screening tool for lung cancer within a year prior to the commencement of this action. The court found the former theory untenable because it had been rejected by the New York Court of Appeals in Snyder v. Town Insulation, Inc., 81 N.Y.2d at 433-35, 599 N.Y.S.2d at 517-18, 615 N.E.2d 999. The court rejected plaintiffs' newly-available-remedy theory of timeliness on the ground that, "as is readily apparent from a review of the elements of both causes of action, neither claim is dependent upon the availability of a specific remedy," and therefore the availability of LDCT as a remedy "is irrelevant to the accrual" of those claims. Caronia I, 2010 WL 520558, at *4.
D. Plaintiffs' Fourth Amended Complaint
The district court noted that plaintiffs had sought medical monitoring as a remedy for their tort claims of strict liability, negligence, and breach of warranty but had not sought to plead a free-standing equitable claim for medical monitoring, and neither side had briefed the precise issue of whether New York recognizes such a cause of action. See Caronia I, 2010 WL 520558, at *8-*9. The court concluded that plaintiffs should be allowed to file a further amended complaint in the interests of justice.
In their Fourth Amended Complaint, plaintiffs repeated virtually all of the factual allegations of the Third Amended Complaint and added a new "EQUITABLE CAUSE OF ACTION" for medical monitoring. Plaintiffs reiterated their assertions that Philip Morris had "designed, produced, manufactured, and sold cigarettes, which, even if used properly, substantially and unnecessarily elevated Plaintiffs' and the class members' likelihood of developing lung cancer" (4th Am. Comp. ¶ 110), that plaintiffs' injuries cannot be remedied by an award of money damages (see id. ¶ 115), and that there exists a medical test for early detection having the potential for altering the course of the disease, but it is available only through a program of medical monitoring (id.). Plaintiffs added that Philip Morris,
motivated by extreme greed, and a reckless and depraved disregard of the virtual certainty that the sale of its addictive and deadly products would condemn hundreds of thousands of its customers to awful disease and lingering deaths,... set out to sell its defective and deadly products to children and others. For instance, Plaintiffs in this case commenced smoking at the ages of fifteen (Caronia), sixteen (Feldman) and approximately fifteen or sixteen (McCauley [sic]).
113. The programmatic medical monitoring through LDCT sought by Plaintiffs in the instant action is a remedy appropriately tailored to both the nature of Philip Morris' misconduct, and the injuries that it has inflicted on the class members.
(4th Am. Comp. ¶¶ 111-113.) Plaintiffs also renewed their motion for class certification.
Philip Morris moved under Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(6) to dismiss this independent cause of action for failure to state a claim, arguing that New York would not recognize such a claim. It argued that even if the State would approve of ordering medical monitoring as a remedy, it would do so only as a remedy for an existing tort. The district court rejected these contentions.
The district court explored cases decided by New York courts and other courts, see Caronia II, 2011 WL 338425, at *5-*6, and predicted
that the New York Court of Appeals would recognize an independent claim for medical monitoring, and ... further predict[ed] that the Court of Appeals would conclude that the statute of limitations for such a claim begins to run on the first date that some medical monitoring program is accepted within the medical community as an effective method of lung cancer screening or surveillance.
However, the court concluded that plaintiffs' medical monitoring claim must be dismissed for failure "to plead that Philip Morris's allegedly tortious conduct is the reason that they must now secure a monitoring program that includes LDCT scans." Id. at *3. It stated that
the plaintiffs must plead and prove that Philip Morris's failure to produce and market a non-defective cigarette is the reason that the plaintiffs must now secure medical monitoring that includes LDCT scans. This pleading requirement is most obviously embodied by element (6) of the monitoring claim, which requires that the plaintiffs plead and prove that the medical monitoring they now require is different f[ro]m the monitoring that physicians would prescribe for individuals who have not been tortiously exposed to defective Marlboro cigarettes.
Id. at *10. The court concluded that plaintiffs failed to meet this pleading requirement
because the fourth amended complaint contains no allegation that, if Philip Morris had conformed its conduct to the law and designed and marketed a reduced tar cigarette, the plaintiffs would not require the same medical monitoring that they are seeking in this suit. Nowhere have the plaintiffs pleaded that if Philip Morris had marketed and designed the non-defective cigarette they describe, they would not have been exposed to harmful levels of tar.
Philip Morris also moved for summary judgment dismissing the breach-of-warranty claims that had survived its first summary judgment motion, pressing the contention, as the district court described it, that a "product need only provide `for a minimal level of quality' and meet `the expectations for the performance of the product when used in the customary, usual and reasonably foreseeable manner,'" Caronia II, 2011 WL 338425, at *12 (quoting Denny v. Ford Motor Co., 87 N.Y.2d 248, 258-59, 639 N.Y.S.2d 250, 256, 662 N.E.2d 730 (1995)), and "that under this `consumer expectations' test, the plaintiffs cannot prove breach of implied warranty because everyone knew, at the time that the Marlboros at issue in this litigation were sold, that cigarettes, when used normally, put people at risk of developing lung cancer," Caronia II, 2011 WL 338425, at *12. The court found this argument persuasive:
The plaintiffs do not contend that, in the years relevant to this complaint, consumers, including the plaintiffs, thought that smoking tobacco was generally safe and did not expose them to a significantly elevated risk of developing cancer. (See Def. Ex. F.) Rather, they argue, consumers did not know that Philip Morris could easily have produced a safer cigarette. (Pl. R. 56.1 ¶ ¶ 11, 32.) As clarified by counsel at oral argument, the plaintiffs' contention is that consumers generally did not know that Marlboro cigarettes were defective (i.e. unnecessarily dangerous), not that they did not know that they were dangerous, indeed very dangerous. This contention fails because it conflates what New York considers two distinct theories of liability and improperly inserts risk-utility considerations into the law of warranty. See Denny, 87 N.Y.2d at 258, 639 N.Y.S.2d 250, 662 N.E.2d 730 ("It is this negligence-like risk/benefit component of the defect element that differentiates strict products liability claims from UCC[-]based breach of implied warranty claims in cases involving design defects.").... Indeed, the Court believes that the plaintiffs concede this point about conflation when they argue that they "are not required by law to prove the existence of a feasible alternative design in order to prevail at trial on a warranty theory." (Pl. S.J. Opp. at 8.)
Judgment was entered dismissing the action in its entirety and denying plaintiffs' motion for class certification as moot.
II. DISMISSAL OF THE COMMON-LAW AND UCC CLAIMS
Plaintiffs contend that the district court erred in granting summary judgment dismissing their claims for negligence, strict products liability, and breach of the implied warranty of merchantability, arguing principally (1) that their negligence and strict liability claims are timely under CPLR § 213(1) either because the limitations period began anew with each harmful exposure to Marlboro cigarettes or because plaintiffs could not assert those claims until the LDCT remedy they request became available, and (2) that their breach-of-warranty claims could not properly be dismissed as a matter of law because there were genuine issues to be tried as to whether Marlboro cigarettes could have been made safer for their intended purpose.
Summary judgment is appropriate only where "there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law." Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(a). In determining whether that standard is met, the court must draw all reasonable factual inferences in favor of the party against whom summary judgment is sought. See, e.g., Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 255, 106 S.Ct. 2505, 91 L.Ed.2d 202 (1986); Lyons v. Lancer Insurance Co., 681 F.3d 50, 56 (2d Cir.2012). The same standard governs our review of the granting of summary judgment. See, e.g., Kaytor v. Electric Boat Corp., 609 F.3d 537, 546 (2d Cir.2010); Petrosino v. Bell Atlantic, 385 F.3d 210, 219 (2d Cir.2004); Distasio v. Perkin Elmer Corp., 157 F.3d 55, 61 (2d Cir.1998). We "will construe the facts in the light most favorable to the non-moving party and must resolve all ambiguities and draw all reasonable inferences against the movant," Brod v. Omya, Inc., 653 F.3d 156, 164 (2d Cir.2011) (internal quotation marks omitted); we review the "district court's interpretation of law ... de novo," id.
Applying these standards — and applying principles of New York law, which governs this case in which federal jurisdiction is premised on diversity of citizenship — we conclude that summary judgment dismissing plaintiffs' negligence, strict liability, and breach of warranty claims was appropriate.
A. Untimeliness of the Negligence and Strict Liability Claims
Under New York law, in order to recover on a claim for negligence, a plaintiff must show "(1) the existence of a duty on defendant's part as to plaintiff; (2) a breach of this duty; and (3) injury to the plaintiff as a result thereof." Akins v. Glens Falls City School District, 53 N.Y.2d 325, 333, 441 N.Y.S.2d 644, 648, 424 N.E.2d 531 (1981). "In order to establish a prima facie case in strict products liability for design defects, the plaintiff must show that the manufacturer breached its duty to market safe products when it marketed a product designed so that it was not reasonably safe and that the defective design was a substantial factor in causing plaintiff's injury." Voss v. Black & Decker Manufacturing Co., 59 N.Y.2d 102, 107, 463 N.Y.S.2d 398, 402, 450 N.E.2d 204 (1983); see id. at 109, 463 N.Y.S.2d at 403, 450 N.E.2d 204 ("the plaintiff is required to show that the defectively designed product caused his injury and that the defect was the proximate cause of the injury"). Plainly, to recover on either type of claim, a plaintiff must prove injury.
Preliminarily, we note that plaintiffs, despite having argued before the district court that the six-year limitations period provided in CPLR § 213(1) applied, appear to argue on appeal that their negligence and strict liability claims are not subject to any statute of limitations. They point out that the three-year limitations period provided in CPLR §§ 214(5) and 214-c(2) apply, respectively, to actions to recover damages for personal injury and to actions seeking damages for latent injuries caused by exposure to toxic substances (Plaintiffs' brief on appeal at 24); they state, inter alia, that "Plaintiffs do not allege personal injury in this case" (id. (emphasis added)); and they state that "[i]f a provision of the CPLR applied to [plaintiffs'] claims, it would be the six-year catch all provision of N.Y. C.P.L.R. § 213(1)" (Plaintiffs' brief on appeal at 25 (emphasis added)).
Although the absence of an allegation of injury in a tort claim could indeed pose a conundrum for identifying the commencement of the limitations period, see, e.g., Kronos, Inc. v. AVX Corp., 81 N.Y.2d 90, 94, 595 N.Y.S.2d 931, 934, 612 N.E.2d 289 (1993) ("as a general proposition, a tort cause of action cannot accrue until an injury is sustained"); Ackerman v. Price Waterhouse, 84 N.Y.2d 535, 541, 620 N.Y.S.2d 318, 321, 644 N.E.2d 1009 (1994) ("it is upon injury that a legal right to relief arises in a tort action and the Statute of Limitations begins to run....") (emphasis added), the inquiry would likely not reach the affirmative defense stage, for if the complaint failed to allege injury, it would be dismissable for failure to state a claim.
Here, however, plaintiffs had alleged that each plaintiff — and each member of the proposed class — had smoked a minimum of 146,000 Marlboro cigarettes and as a result had been "exposed to an excessive amount of carcinogens" (Third Amended Complaint ¶ 68); that the negligence, design defects, and other misconduct attributed to Philip Morris in its manufacture and sale of those cigarettes "caus[ed] plaintiffs to be at increased risk of developing lung cancer" (e.g., id. ¶¶ 90, 99, 113); and that "Plaintiffs and the Class have suffered ... harm as a result of defendants' [sic ] wrongful conduct" (id. ¶ 38). At oral argument of Philip Morris's first summary judgment motion, the district court sought and received explicit clarification that plaintiffs were claiming injury in the form of their increased risk of developing lung cancer:
"THE COURT: So the elements of your claim are that it was defectively designed and that defective design was the proximate cause of an injury, that injury being an increased risk of getting lung cancer.
Mr. BLOCK [counsel for plaintiffs]: That's absolutely right, your Honor."
Caronia I, 2010 WL 520558, at *5 (quoting Transcript of oral argument of summary judgment motion, February 7, 2008, at 51) (emphases ours). Accordingly, we see no error in the district court's conclusion that "[b]oth parties agree[d] that the injury in this action is the increased risk of developing lung cancer as a result of smoking Marlboro cigarettes for twenty pack-years," id. at *3 (emphasis added).
While plaintiffs contend that their claims are timely under the six-year limitations period and that the three-year limitations period provided in CPLR § 214(5) is inapplicable because it governs actions to recover "damages," whereas they are seeking a remedy of medical monitoring rather than damages (Plaintiffs' brief on appeal at 24), Philip Morris argues that plaintiffs' claims are untimely even under the six-year limitations period. However, Philip Morris contends that those claims are subject to the three-year limitations period because in reality the request for medical monitoring is a request for "`consequential damages'" (Philip Morris brief on appeal at 17 n.6) (quoting Askey v. Occidental Chemical Corp., 102 A.D.2d 130, 135, 477 N.Y.S.2d 242, 247 (4th Dep't 1984) ("Askey")).
We, like the district court, need not resolve the question of whether the applicable statute of limitations is three years or six years. Although the choice between limitations periods may depend on whether the relief sought by the plaintiff is legal or equitable, see, e.g., Loengard v. Santa Fe Industries, Inc., 70 N.Y.2d 262, 266, 519 N.Y.S.2d 801, 803, 514 N.E.2d 113 (1987), the district court properly concluded that plaintiffs' claims are time-barred under either statute.
In challenging the district court's ruling that their negligence and strict liability claims were untimely because the injury they alleged — the increased risk of lung cancer resulting from 20 pack-years of smoking Marlboro cigarettes — arose in the mid-1990s, plaintiffs renew their arguments (a) that Philip Morris's continuing course of conduct in manufacturing and selling Marlboro cigarettes "inflict[ed] new and continuing injury, or aggravate[d] old injury," thereby causing the limitations period to begin anew with each new exposure (Plaintiffs' brief on appeal at 29-30), and (b) that their claims did not accrue until approximately one year before they commenced this action, when the relief they sought — LDCT — became available (see id. at 27-28). Both contentions are contrary to New York law.
1. The Continuing Exposure Theory
New York's CPLR provides that "except as otherwise expressly prescribed," limitations periods "shall be computed from the time the cause of action accrued." CPLR § 203(a) (McKinney 2003). A cause of action has accrued "when all of the facts necessary to the cause of action have occurred so that the party would be entitled to obtain relief in court." Aetna Life and Casualty Co. v. Nelson, 67 N.Y.2d 169, 175, 501 N.Y.S.2d 313, 316, 492 N.E.2d 386 (1986).
In Snyder v. Town Insulation, Inc., 81 N.Y.2d 429, 599 N.Y.S.2d 515, 615 N.E.2d 999 (1993) ("Snyder"), the New York Court of Appeals considered the question of when a cause of action accrued for "damages for [respiratory] injuries [that the plaintiffs] allegedly sustained as a result of emissions from urea-formaldehyde foam insulation installed in their home in 1977." Id. at 431, 599 N.Y.S.2d at 515, 615 N.E.2d 999. As the lawsuit sought damages (and the date-of-discovery rule was not at issue, see id., 599 N.Y.S.2d at 516, 615 N.E.2d 999), the three-year limitations period provided by CPLR § 214 applied; however, the claim was first asserted more than five years after the plaintiffs had begun inhaling the injurious emissions. Resolution of the timeliness question turned on "whether accrual under CPLR 214 is measured from the date of injury or from the date of last exposure." Id., 599 N.Y.S.2d at 516, 615 N.E.2d 999 (emphasis added). The court concluded that the claim was barred because it had accrued on the date of injury:
An action to recover damages for personal injuries must be commenced within three years from the date of accrual (CPLR 203[a]; 214[5]; but see, 214-c). As a general proposition, the cause of action does not accrue until an injury is sustained.... Stated another way, accrual occurs when the claim becomes enforceable, i.e., when all elements of the tort can be truthfully alleged in a complaint.... The straightforward application of these principles leads to the conclusion that plaintiffs' causes of action accrued on the date they were first injured. At that moment, all elements of the tort could be truthfully alleged, and they had a colorable claim against defendants.
81 N.Y.2d at 432-33, 599 N.Y.S.2d at 516-17, 615 N.E.2d 999 (emphases added).
The court rejected the Snyders' contention that the New York Court of Appeals had, "in so-called `toxic tort' cases, where the injury results from injection, ingestion, or inhalation of a substance," established a date-of-last-exposure rule. 81 N.Y.2d at 433, 599 N.Y.S.2d at 517, 615 N.E.2d 999. The court stated that no Court of Appeals case stood for such a rule. It noted, for example, that in a case in which a worker had "commenced a negligence action against his employer, alleging that inhalation of dust on the job resulted in lung disease several years later," and had argued that the accrual of his cause of action should be "the date of the onset of the disease," the New York Court of Appeals had "rejected that proposition and restated the traditional rule: `There can be no doubt that a cause of action accrues only when the forces wrongfully put in motion produce injury,'" 81 N.Y.2d at 433, 599 N.Y.S.2d at 517, 615 N.E.2d 999 (quoting Schmidt v. Merchants Despatch Transportation Co., 270 N.Y. 287, 300-01, 200 N.E. 824, 827 (1936)). The Snyder court noted that the lung disease was not the injury: "Disease [i]s a consequence of the injury,... not the injury itself, and the injury was complete at the moment the dust was inhaled even though plaintiff may not have been aware of it then...." 81 N.Y.2d at 433, 599 N.Y.S.2d at 517, 615 N.E.2d 999.
Thus, the New York Court of Appeals in Snyder observed that "[f]or more than a half a century, our cases have uniformly held that such causes of action accrue upon injury." Id.; see, e.g., Rothstein v. Tennessee Gas Pipeline Co., 87 N.Y.2d 90, 93, 637 N.Y.S.2d 674, 675, 661 N.E.2d 146 (1995) ("The long-standing rule in toxic tort cases in New York has been that when chemical compounds are injected into a person's body, the injury occurs upon the drugs['] introduction, not when the alleged deleterious effects of its component chemicals become apparent.") (internal quotation marks omitted).
The Snyder Court pointed out that "[d]etermining when limitations begin to run requires a balancing of policy considerations." 81 N.Y.2d at 435, 599 N.Y.S.2d at 518, 615 N.E.2d 999.
On one side of the scale are the interests of injured parties. Unquestionably, a Statute of Limitations can have a severe impact on their rights when, for instance, an injury is not discovered until years later. The Legislature has acted to ameliorate the rule in such cases in recent years (see, CPLR 214-c). Conversely, defendants are entitled to a fair opportunity to defend claims against them before their ability to do so has deteriorated....
Id. The court thus rejected the contention of Mrs. Snyder that her suit was timely because she was still living in the house and was continuing to suffer exposure to the insulation. The court declined to adopt a rule that would give "a plaintiff... the power to put off the running of the Statute of Limitations indefinitely." Id. Cf. Adamo v. Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp., 11 N.Y.3d 545, 551, 872 N.Y.S.2d 415, 418, 900 N.E.2d 966 (2008) (stating, on an issue other than accrual, that "[t]o hold... that every sale of regular cigarettes exposes the manufacturer to tort liability would amount to a judicial ban on the product").
We conclude that the district court in the present case correctly interpreted Snyder as establishing that a claim for injury caused by harmful exposure to toxic substances accrues when that exposure occurs, and does not, as plaintiffs in the present case argue, repeatedly accrue with each new inhalation. As this action was commenced in 2006, and plaintiffs' depositions established that plaintiffs had known more than three years earlier that smoking cigarettes was the cause of their increased risk of lung cancer, and that each plaintiff had reached the 20-pack-year level by the mid-1990s at the latest, the district court properly ruled that their injuries occurred prior to the applicable limitations period, whether that period was three years or six.
2. The Newly-Available Relief Theory
Notwithstanding the occurrence of the injury of "increased risk of developing lung cancer" (Third Amended Complaint ¶¶ 90, 99, 113) more than six years prior to their 2006 commencement of this action, plaintiffs contend that their claims did not accrue until 2006, because "prior to the instant suit's commencement, no efficacious relief," i.e., LDCT, "was available" (Plaintiffs' brief on appeal at 28). Thus, plaintiffs contend that a cause of action does not accrue until a form of relief that an injured person prefers has become technologically feasible.
In support of this contention, plaintiffs quote snippets from a number of cases; but none of them stands for such a proposition. For example, plaintiffs cite LaBello v. Albany Medical Center Hospital, 85 N.Y.2d 701, 706, 628 N.Y.S.2d 40, 42, 651 N.E.2d 908 (1995), for its statement that "the `[s]tatute of Limitations does not run until there is a legal right to relief' and `accrual occurs when the claim becomes enforceable'" (Plaintiffs' brief on appeal at 26). That case, however, involved a claim for prenatal injury, and the court simply ruled that the claim did not accrue until the child was born. See 85 N.Y.2d at 708, 628 N.Y.S.2d at 44, 651 N.E.2d 908. In Aetna Life & Casualty Co. v. Nelson, 67 N.Y.2d 169, 175, 501 N.Y.S.2d 313, 316, 492 N.E.2d 386 (1986), cited for its statement that "`[t]he Statute of Limitations begins to run ... when all of the facts necessary to the cause of action have occurred so that the party would be entitled to obtain relief in court'" (Plaintiffs' brief on appeal at 26), the court merely held that where an insurer has paid its insured for a loss and the insured recovers compensation for that loss from another source, the insurer's right to recoup "any [such] recovery obtained by the insured" does not accrue until that recovery has in fact been obtained, 67 N.Y.2d at 176, 501 N.Y.S.2d at 317, 492 N.E.2d 386 (internal quotation marks omitted). In Jacobus v. Colgate, 217 N.Y. 235, 245, 111 N.E. 837, 840 (1916), cited for its statement that "`[a] cause of action does not accrue until its enforcement becomes possible'" (Plaintiffs' brief on appeal at 29), the court was discussing the fact that until 1913 no New York court had jurisdiction to entertain a suit for injury to real property that was outside of the State, see 217 N.Y. at 239, 111 N.E. at 838. In Vigilant Insurance Co. v. Housing Authority of the City of El Paso, 87 N.Y.2d 36, 43, 637 N.Y.S.2d 342, 346, 660 N.E.2d 1121 (1995), cited for its statement that a claim cannot accrue until "`all of the facts necessary to sustain the cause of action have occurred, so that a party could obtain relief in court'" (Plaintiffs' brief on appeal at 25), the court was discussing the unremarkable principle that the "right to sue on [a] bond's principal debt does not accrue until the debt is `due and payable,'" 87 N.Y.2d at 44, 637 N.Y.S.2d at 346, 660 N.E.2d 1121.
Plaintiffs recognize, however, that more than two decades prior to the commencement of this action it was "clear that New York's courts look with favor on claims for medical monitoring" (Plaintiffs' brief on appeal at 35-36 (citing, inter alia, Askey, 102 A.D.2d at 135, 477 N.Y.S.2d at 246)), and on medical monitoring requests by plaintiffs who had been exposed to carcinogenic substances and feared they would develop cancer (Plaintiffs' brief on appeal at 36 (citing, inter alia, Dangler v. Town of Whitestown, 241 A.D.2d 290, 294, 672 N.Y.S.2d 188, 190 (4th Dep't 1998) ("Dangler"), and Abusio v. Consolidated Edison Co., 238 A.D.2d 454, 454, 656 N.Y.S.2d 371, 372 (2d Dep't 1997) ("Abusio"))).
In Abusio, although the court upheld the dismissal of cancerphobia claims on the ground that the plaintiffs had not presented sufficient evidence to prevail, it noted, citing cases, the availability of actions for recovery of the cost of future medical monitoring as relief for cancerphobia:
Under the prevailing case law, in order to maintain a cause of action for fear of developing cancer or for future medical monitoring costs following exposure to a toxic substance like polychlorinated biphenyls (hereinafter PCBs), a plaintiff must establish both that he or she was in fact exposed to the disease-causing agent and that there is a "rational basis" for his or her fear of contracting the disease.... This "rational basis" has been construed to mean the clinically demonstrable presence of PCBs in the plaintiff's body, or some indication of PCB-induced disease, i.e., some physical manifestatio