Opinion ID: 779089
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The District Court's View of the Factual Record

Text: 172 We also conclude that the district court did not correctly apply the principles applicable to the consideration of a motion for summary judgment. In assessing such a motion, the court is required to view the factual record in the light most favorable to the party against whom summary judgment is sought and to draw all factual inferences in favor of that party. See, e.g., Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 255, 106 S.Ct. 2505, 91 L.Ed.2d 202 (1986); United States v. Diebold, Inc., 369 U.S. 654, 655, 82 S.Ct. 993, 8 L.Ed.2d 176 (1962) (per curiam). The district court, while adverting to this standard, did not apply it. 173 In ruling that the FRCD was no later than the end of 1991, the district court relied on the fact that Defendants ha[d] submitted a plethora of exhibits, principally consisting of government and media reports; the court found that these documents establish[ed] that a highly publicized controversy existed within the local community over whether the Landfill posed a threat to the health and safety of those who resided or worked in the vicinity of the Landfill; and the court concluded that these documents should have raised in plaintiffs a reasonable suspicion as to the cause of their injuries. Pfohl II, 68 F.Supp.2d at 253. The court accepted defendants' argument that 174 as after 1991 there were no new government studies, releases of previously undisclosed information, nor any medical or scientific breakthroughs on which Plaintiffs rely as having permitted them to discover the cause of their cancers, Plaintiffs have failed to establish the existence of a material issue of fact that such cause could not have been determined prior to the end of 1991. 175 Id. at 257. We have two difficulties with the court's reliance on the documents submitted by defendants. 176 First, many of defendants' documents themselves reflected the absence of any scientific knowledge that the Landfill was carcinogenic; and indeed, reports of expert studies suggested that it was not. For example, defendants submitted an October 11, 1988 DEC letter to Concerned Citizen[s], that stated, inter alia, that the low radiation levels found in areas of the Landfill does not present any immediate threat to public health. And among the statements in news articles submitted by defendants were the following: radiation levels at the Pfohl Landfill, according to DEC and DOH, pose no threat to the public ( The Buffalo News, October 14, 1988); radiation risks from the Pfohl Landfill, according to State expert, are `very, very minimal' ( The Buffalo News, November 2, 1989); `exposure to radiation on the site,' according to DEC, `presents little, if any, public health hazard' ( The Buffalo News, March 30, 1990); and [n]o health threat found in [DOH's] Pfohl Road soil tests ( The Buffalo News, November 15, 1990). 177 Even the most alarming DOH report, issued in March 1991 and reporting excess numbers of certain types of cancers in 1978-1987, was, accurately, described in news articles as being accompanied by State officials' denials of any clear linkages between the cancers and the Landfill. See, e.g., The Buffalo News, March 26, 1991 (DOH study finds higher than expected instances of lymphoma and leukemias, but not high enough to be classified as a `significant excess' statistically; the increase is likely related to income, socioeconomic and status factors; DOH `can't tell whether the landfill is responsible'). 178 Thus, the district court inappropriately failed to view the documents submitted by defendants in the light most favorable to plaintiffs as the parties against whom summary judgment was sought. While defendants provided abundant evidence of the existence of controversy, much of what they submitted was either equivocal as to whether the Landfill could be causing cancers or contained outright denials of such causation. No doubt the lack of any indication in these reports and articles that there was scientific knowledge that the Landfill was carcinogenic was an impetus for defendants' urging the district court that the reasonably-should-have known standard of § 9658 could be satisfied by showing a basis merely for reasonable suspicion. 179 Our second difficulty with the district court's application of summary judgment principles is that, in reaching its conclusions as to the date on which plaintiffs reasonably should have known the cause of the injuries, the district court did not acknowledge the inferences available to plaintiffs from the record as a whole. Even had the documents submitted by defendants supported an inference of early constructive knowledge rather than simply of suspicion, the court was required to consider not just those documents but also the evidence submitted by plaintiffs. The court's opinion does not indicate that it did so. For example, although noting that there were no new revelatory government studies after 1991, Pfohl II, 68 F.Supp.2d at 257, the court apparently did not take into account the fact that the latest studies done in 1991 gave plaintiffs no reason whatever to know that the cancers were caused by the Landfill. As described in Part I.E.2. above, DOH's follow-up studies on cancer incidence, reported in November 1991, revealed no linkage with the Pfohl Landfill. The Melius affidavit described the results of those studies, the reasoning of DOH in reaching its conclusions, and the statements made by State officials to area residents that no ... documented evidence existed of a health threat posed by the Pfohl Landfill (Melius Aff. ¶ 13). 180 The publicity surrounding the November 1991 DOH reports surely gave plaintiffs no reason to know the cancers were caused by the Landfill. The Buffalo News on December 17, 1991, carried the headline Study can't link Pfohl landfill to cancer and reported that the DOH follow-up study of the higher-than-expected rates of cancers in the same census tract as the Landfill failed to uncover any evidence of `clustering' of prostate cancer, leukemia, lymphoma and female lung cancer near the inactive dump. Similarly, the Cheektowaga Times on December 26, 1991, carried the headline Health Department studies fail to link landfill to cancer and reported that [a]ccording to recent reports released by the New York State Department of Health, no link exists between the Pfohl Brothers Landfill site and cancer incidence for those residen[ts] living on or near the dump site. 181 Subsequent articles, as well as state and federal governmental studies, continued after 1991 to report the lack of any discovery of a link between the cancers and the Landfill. See, e.g., Cheektowaga Times, December 2, 1993 (Ground water uncontaminated near Pfohl dump; Ground water surrounding the Pfohl Brothers dump has turned up clean in all studies performed so far.); The Buffalo News, August 26, 1994 (Two studies by federal and state agencies refute charges that contamination from the Pfohl Brothers dump in Cheektowaga has caused serious health problems.); August 1994 DOH report (with letter to residents of Cheektowaga stating that none of the patterns of a true cancer cluster were found.... No evidence was found for a common environmental cause.); August 1994 USATSDR report (available data [on the Pfohl Landfill] do not indicate exposures to contaminants in the environmental media to be high enough to cause adverse health effects;  no apparent public health hazard at the present time (emphasis in original)). 182 Consistent with the tenor of these news reports, Dr. Melius, who was the director of the pertinent DOH division throughout this period, stated in his affidavit that he informed area residents that there were many possible explanations for observed incidences of cancer, including socioeconomic factors, improved screening practices, personal lifestyle, and medical history. And in the many meetings and communications with area residents, neither Dr. Melius nor any other member of DOH ever told any member of the public that the cancer cases in the area were in any way related to the Pfohl Brothers landfill. ( See, e.g., Melius Aff. ¶¶ 6, 15.) 183 There is no question that defendants submitted to the district court numerous documents showing that there were local concerns and controversies as to whether health problems were being caused by the Pfohl Landfill. And if notice of controversy were the issue, defendants' motion for summary judgment would have had greater merit. But that is not the standard for determining the Federal Commencement Date, and the record did not permit the court to conclude that no reasonable fact-finder could fail to infer that plaintiffs reasonably should have known prior to the end of 1991 that the Landfill was the cause of the injuries. 184 In sum, many studies had been done by two State agencies, DOH and DEC. There is no evidence that they found the Pfohl Landfill to cause cancers, and the record is replete with evidence that the State officials repeatedly assured residents, both through the publicized reports and in personal meetings, that there was no evidence of such causation. We cannot endorse the proposition that, as a matter of law, when reports issued by the responsible public officials stated that there was no provable link between the cancers and the Landfill, members of the public reasonably should have known to the contrary. E. The Length of the Limitations Period 185 Finally, plaintiffs also contend that the district court ruled, erroneously, that their survival claims were governed by a one-year limitations period. We do not so interpret the court's opinion. 186 The FRCD preempts a more restrictive state law only with respect to the date on which a claim accrues, not with respect to the length of the limitations period. See 42 U.S.C. § 9658(a)(1) (if the applicable [state or common-law] limitations period ... provides a commencement date which is earlier than the federally required commencement date, such period shall commence at the federally required commencement date in lieu of the [state-law] date (emphasis added)). Thus, New York law still controls with respect to the length of the limitations period. Section 214-c, as modified by the FRCD, gives the plaintiff one year from the date of discovery of the cause of the injury to commence a lawsuit (or three years from the date of discovery of the injury, if longer) and that provision satisfies the requirements of the FRCD. 187 Plaintiffs advert to statements by the district court that are somewhat elliptical standing alone. See, e.g., Pfohl I, 26 F.Supp.2d at 531 (the one year period provided by § 214-c(4) will attach to the claim upon discovery of the cause of the injury, as the FRCD permits, regardless of how much time has elapsed since the discovery of the injury  (emphasis added)); Pfohl II, 68 F.Supp.2d at 249 (referring to the proviso to § 214-c(4) limiting the benefit of the extra year within which to file a toxic tort claim to a maximum period of five years from discovery of the injury). These statements, however, were made only in the court's discussion of the effect of the FRCD. 188 In directly interpreting the New York limitations periods, the court had noted that under § 214-c(4), 189 if the plaintiff discovers the cause of a toxic tort injury within five years of the discovery of the injury, the plaintiff may invoke the longer of (a) the three year period from the discovery of the injury or (b) a one year period from the discovery of the cause within which to commence an action. 190 Pfohl I, 26 F.Supp.2d at 521 (emphasis in original); see also Pfohl II, 68 F.Supp.2d at 247 (`an action may be commenced or a claim filed within one year of such discovery of the cause of the injury,' provided less than five years have elapsed since the discovery of the injury (emphasis omitted)). These rulings were correct, and we do not view the court's subsequent shorthand references as overturning its direct interpretation of § 214-c. 191 In context, the elliptical statements quoted above were intended simply to indicate that the effect of the FRCD, where suit was not brought within three years of the discovery-of-injury date, is to allow a plaintiff to bring suit within one year after discovery of the cause of an injury, even if more than five years have elapsed since discovery of the injury. We see no indication that the district court applied a different principle.