Opinion ID: 4198308
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Evolving Case Law: Relaxing Standards

Text: Some courts have responded by implementing a more relaxed analytical framework for these suits. None of these approaches has yet won general acceptance, and each contains certain flaws.49
The preponderance rule is very similar to the typical preponderance of the evidence burden. It requires a plaintiff to prove that the defendant’s activity was more likely than not either the but-for causation or a substantial factor in causing the plaintiff’s injuries.50 Courts have equated the “more 49 The following discussion of evolving law is not intended as an exhaustive survey. Rather, I mention it only to offer additional examples of the problem and some solutions that have been suggested. 50 Shelly Brinker, Opening the Door to the Indeterminate Plaintiff: An Analysis of the Causation Barriers Facing Environmental Toxic Tort Plaintiffs, 46 UCLA L. Rev. 1289, 1303-04 (1999) [hereinafter Brinker]; see Sterling v. Velsicol Chemical Corp., 855 F.2d 1188, 1201 (6th Cir. 1988) (“Whereas numerous jurisdictions have rejected medical experts’ conclusions based upon a ‘probability,’ a ‘likelihood,’ and an opinion that something is ‘more likely than not’ as insufficient medical proof, the Tennessee courts have adopted a far less stringent standard of proof and have required only that the plaintiffs prove a causal connection between their injuries and the defendant’s tortious conduct by a preponderance of the evidence. While, in accordance with Tennessee common law, plaintiffs’ proof by a reasonable medical certainty requires them only to establish that their particular injuries more likely than not were caused by 15 likely than not” element of this rule to a level of certainty greater than 50%.51 The preponderance rule does not reduce a plaintiff’s burden of showing cause-in-fact, it allows the plaintiff to present individualized and statistical evidence to establish that the defendant’s activities were likely a substantial contributor to plaintiff’s injury.52 Because of the 50% threshold requirement, plaintiffs who cannot demonstrate a greater than 50% likelihood that the defendant caused their injuries do not recover anything. However, if plaintiffs are able to show, for example, that defendant is responsible for causing injuries to 51% of the exposed population, every plaintiff recovers even though the evidence only proved that 51% of the individuals in the exposed population suffered injuries because of defendant’s activities. This is basically the way causation is now determined in Pennsylvania, as explained in the Majority’s discussion of Rost v. Ford Motor Co.,53 except that it allows group recovery if any group member of the group is successful in showing his/her disease was proximately caused (i.e. by a 51% probability) by a defendant. There are several obvious problems with this approach. As we have explained above, because everyone in ingesting the contaminated water, their proofs may be neither speculative nor conjectural.”). 51 In re Agent Orange Prod. Liab. Litig., 597 F. Supp. 740, 835-37 (E.D.N.Y. 1984), aff’d sub nom. In re Agent Orange Prod. Liab. Litig. MDL No. 381, 818 F.2d 145 (2d Cir. 1987) (quoting Jackson v. Johns-Manville Sales Corp., 727 F.2d 506, 516 (5th Cir. 1984), on reh'g, 750 F.2d 1314 (5th Cir. 1985)) (The rule provides an “‘all or nothing’ approach, whereby [assuming all other elements of the cause of action are proven], the plaintiff becomes entitled to full compensation for those . . . damages that are proved to be ‘probable’ (a greater than 50 percent chance), but is not entitled to any compensation if the proof does not establish a greater than 50 percent chance.”). 52 Id. at 835. 53 See Maj. Op. at 49-52 (citing Rost, 151 A.3d 1032). 16 16 the population will have been exposed to radiation during their lifetime, and since it is not yet possible to isolate the effect of radiation from a particular source, the same problems of causation remain. This approach merely suspends proof of causation for everyone else if anyone in the group can prove causation. All recover based on the showing that someone should recover. However the nearly impossible burden of proving causation remains. Moreover, if the burden can somehow be satisfied by any one plaintiff or a subset of plaintiffs, the result imposes “crushing liability” on defendants that could negatively impact some efforts to find alternative energy sources.54 In addition, this approach allows plaintiffs whose injury is probably genetic or due to background radiation to recover along with those who can trace their injury to the disputed source. But, the fact that one or more plaintiffs in a given population have been injured by exposure to a given source certainly does not mean that everyone in that population has been. Yet, everyone would ride along on the claims of those who can show a defendant proximately caused his/her injury.
Alternatively, some courts have used the proportionality rule. This rule presumes causation when a plaintiff presents statistical evidence showing that it is likely that a defendant’s activities caused an injury to a proportion of the individuals in the exposed population.55 This approach may, at first, also appear to resemble Pennsylvania’s “frequency, regularity and proximity” test. However, under a pure implementation of this proportionality rule, plaintiffs are not required to present individualized proof. For example, if 100 plaintiffs alleged that defendant’s disposal of hazardous wastes caused their injury and the risk of developing such injury in the exposed population is 55%, then every plaintiff will recover 55%.56 However, plaintiffs will likely never 54 Brinker at 1309-10. 55 Id. at 1313. 56 Sindell v. Abbott Labs., 607 P.2d 924, 937 (Cal. 1980); see Cottle v. Superior Court, 5 Cal. Rptr. 2d 882, 905 (Ct. App. 1992) (Johnson, J., dissenting) (“Instead of choosing between the extremes of overcompensation and no compensation at all 17 obtain complete recovery under such a tort regime.57 In addition, this rule still allows plaintiffs whose injuries or deaths were likely attributable primarily to background radiation or genetics (or a combination of the two) to recover.
The United States District Court for the District of Utah presented another option in Allen v. United States, which involved a dispute arising from atmospheric testing. That court resorted to burden shifting. A rebuttable presumption of liability arises if a plaintiff can show a correlation between his or her injuries and the increased risk resulting from a defendant’s negligent release of radiation. The problem here is that correlation is not the same as causation.58 Yet, using this approach, Allen held that [w]here a defendant who negligently creates a radiological hazard which puts an identifiable population group at increased risk, and a member of that group at risk develops a biological condition which is consistent with having been caused by the hazard to which he has been negligently subjected, such consistency having been demonstrated by this solution allows plaintiffs to recover a percentage of their damages from those responsible for their exposure to the toxic. Under this formula defendants responsible for the toxic exposure are liable to all those who were exposed and later suffered injury—including those who may have suffered the injury even if they had never come near the toxic substance. But defendants are only liable for a percentage of plaintiffs’ damages equal to the degree this exposure increased plaintiffs’ risk of injury. For example, assume a chemical increases the risk of cancer by 15 percent among those exposed to the toxin. All exposed to this chemical who later came down with cancer would be entitled to recover 15 percent of their total damages from those responsible for the exposure.”). 57 Brinker at 1318 (citation omitted). 58 For example, the height of males and females correlates to whether they play professional basketball. However, playing professional basketball does not cause players to grow taller. 18 18 substantial, appropriate, persuasive and connecting factors, a fact finder may reasonably conclude that the hazard caused the condition absent persuasive proof to the contrary offered by the defendant.59 In undertaking this inquiry, the fact finder considers the following non-exhaustive list of factors:
ionizing radiation due to nuclear fallout from atmospheric testing at the . . . Test Site at rates in excess of natural background radiation; (2) that plaintiff's injury is of a type consistent with those known to be caused by exposure to radiation; and (3) that plaintiff resided in geographical proximity to the . . . Test Site . . . . Other factual connections may include but are not limited to such things as time and extent of exposure to fallout, radiation sensitivity factors such as age or special sensitivities of the afflicted organ or tissue, retroactive internal or external dose estimation by current researchers, a latency period consistent with a radiation etiology, or an observed statistical incidence of the alleged injury greater than the expected incidence in the same population.60 59 Allen v. United States, 588 F. Supp. 247, 415 (D. Utah 1984), rev’d on other grounds, 816 F.2d 1417 (10th Cir. 1987). 60 Id.; see also Restatement (Second) of Torts § 433 (1965) (“The following considerations are in themselves or in combination with one another important in determining whether the [defendant’s] conduct is a substantial factor in bringing about harm to another: (a) the number of other factors which contribute in producing the harm and the extent of the effect which they have in producing it; (b) whether the actor’s conduct has created a force or series of forces which are in continuous and active operation up to the time of the harm, or has created a situation harmless unless acted upon by other forces for which the actor is not responsible; (c) lapse of time.”); see also O’Connell (proposing a species of proportionality tests that allows compensation based upon 19 The problem here is that because this rule presents several factors that courts can consider, consistency may be elusive and courts addressing substantially identical circumstances may reach different results. Nevertheless, this approach appears to be the most promising and the most consistent with the realities of the risk created by an activity that can expose a population to radiation. It may be that the only realistic approach is to compensate an identified population for the increased risk occasioned by a given activity. I do not, however, suggest that such nagging questions as the amount of that compensation, identifying the population that is at increased risk, or countless other factors lend themselves to easy or equitable resolution. None of these approaches have yet gained wide acceptance and, as should be evident from this discussion, none of these approaches is close to perfect. Rather, they are sorely needed attempts to adopt (or augment) the traditional rules requiring a direct and linear cause-in-fact relationship with no intervening causes, to the reality of exposure to ionizing radiation resulting from human activities.