Court Opinion

ID: 9733194
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 16:57:38.563388+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:27:32.789190
License: Public Domain

HANDLER, J.,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
This case involves a municipality that operated a landfill over a long period of time in a palpably unreasonable way, directly subjecting its own residents to carcinogenic and otherwise toxic chemicals. These chemicals caused medical injury in the residents, creating a significant risk that they would develop cancer *613and other diseases equally grave. The risk of disease to these residents is indisputably greater than the risk of disease experienced by the general population. Because of limitations in current scientific knowledge and because of the number and variety of toxic chemicals involved, the victims of this toxic exposure were unable to measure or quantify the enhancement of their risk of disease. The Court focuses on this inability to measure the risk, rather than on the fact of contamination, and rules that these residents cannot therefore recover any damages referable to that enhanced risk. Further, while the majority does recognize a claim for medical monitoring that is clearly referable to the enhanced risk of disease, it rules that in the future the award of this limited item of special damages is not to be treated as compensation paid directly to aggrieved plaintiffs, but will be used only to reimburse actual expenses through a court-supervised fund. In effect, the Court’s holding leaves these grievously wronged persons uncompensated for the injuries caused by the defendant’s palpably unreasonable conduct. The Court thus affords the victims of tortious toxic exposure significantly less protection than it would plaintiffs in other tort actions. While in some respects the Court is influenced by the provisions of the New Jersey Tort Claims Act, N.J.S.A. 59:1-1 to 59:12-3, and the status of defendant as a governmental entity covered by the Act, these considerations do not require or justify the unfairness to plaintiffs. Accordingly, I dissent in part from the majority’s reasoning and holding.
I.
In 1971, the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection granted Jackson Township a permit to use the Legler landfill as a municipal landfill, this permit being conditioned on the municipality’s following certain safety guidelines. The municipality failed to follow these guidelines during the next seven years. Its conduct was found to be “palpably unreasonable”, not simply “negligent.” As a result, the area’s groundwater and underlying aquifier were seriously contaminated.
*614At least 36 contaminants entered the drinking and bathing water of 339 residents of the Township. Among the identified chemicals were proven carcinogens, and toxic chemicals known to damage the liver, the kidneys, the skin, genetic material, and the reproductive system.
Residents dependent upon this water supply very early sensed the danger. From 1972, within a year of the Township’s operation of the landfill, residents expressed concern about the quality of their water. They were assured by the Township that the water was fit to drink. Residents’ complaints eventually prompted the Department of Environmental Protection to investigate the contamination. After testing well water in the Township, the Department and the local Board of Health advised residents in late 1978 to minimize their exposure to the well water. For the next two years, residents were forced to get their water from forty-gallon containers weighing approximately 100 pounds delivered—not always reliably—to their homes.
II.
The essence of the claim for damages here is the reality of the physical injury caused by the wrongful exposure to toxic chemicals and the increased peril of cancer and other serious diseases that the residents have incurred. The Court does not dispute the fact of toxic contamination, nor does it contest the characterization of a significantly enhanced risk of disease as a tortiously inflicted injury. The majority also admits that “[d]is-missal of the enhanced risk claims may effectively preclude any recovery for injuries caused by exposure to chemicals in plaintiffs’ wells.” Ante at 598. Nonetheless, the majority effectively denies plaintiffs any meaningful recovery. It asserts that “the speculative nature of an unquantified enhanced risk claim, the difficulties inherent in adjudicating such claims, and the policies underlying the Tort Claims Act argue persuasively against the recognition of this cause of action.” Ante at 598. *615The Court exaggerates the difficulties in recognizing this cause of action and minimizes the imperative to provide fair compensation for seriously injurious wrongs.
The Court cannot, and does not, dispute or denigrate the expert testimony presented at trial “that the exposure to chemicals had already caused actual physical injury to plaintiffs through its adverse effects on the genetic material within their cells” and “that plaintiffs’ exposure to chemicals had produced ‘a reasonable likelihood that they have now and will develop health consequences from this exposure.’ ” Ante at 589, 590. Dr. Joseph Highland gave uncontested testimony that plaintiffs had already suffered physical injury from the damage to their cellular and genetic material caused by the chemicals to which they were exposed. These chemicals are mutagenic agents: they destroy parts of the genetic material of cells they contact. This destruction may affect only the function of a few cells or it may lead to the failure of major organs. It may make the cells likely starting points for cancer, and it may lead to mutations in the victims’ children.
The majority recognizes that plaintiffs have suffered injury. It is self-evident that exposure to highly toxic chemicals is the “infliction of ... harm,” “an invasion of a legally protected interest.” See Restatement (Second) of Torts, § 7(1) and Comment a (1965) (defining “injury”). See ante at 591-92. Nevertheless, the majority concludes that plaintiffs’ injury cannot be redressed.1 Its reasons for treating their claims different from *616other injury claims are an unsupported fear of “vast numbers of claims” and a belief that no “clear guidelines [exist] to determine what level of compensation may be appropriate.” Ante at 597.
These reasons are an evasion of the challenge posed by tortious injury that carries with it an enhanced risk of even greater injury, and .the need to provide fair compensation for innocent victims suffering this form of injury. The Court postponed a similar determination in Evers v. Dollinger, 95 N.J. 399 (1984). There a woman brought suit claiming that her doctor’s negligent diagnosis and treatment enhanced the risk that her cancer would recur. While her appeal of the trial court’s judgment was pending, she suffered a recurrence of the cancer. The majority decided that it need not decide whether enhanced risk, standing alone, is an actionable element. Id. at 412 n. 7. Nevertheless, the Court held that because the disease had recurred, plaintiff would be allowed to recover damages for enhanced risk. Id. at 417.
Allowing recovery for enhanced risk in Evers where the plaintiff suffered subsequent harm cannot be reconciled with the denial of recovery for enhanced risk in the present case. The majority professes to deny compensation because it cannot “measure” or “quantify” the enhanced risk of future injury. The fact that the plaintiffs in the present case have not—yet— suffered extreme symptoms is no justification for denying recovery. As in Evers v. Dollinger, “[t]he Court is ... troubled by a seeming inability to quantify the risk of future cancer. But, adding the incurrence of future harm as a requirement for the recovery for such increased risk does not resolve the dilemma since the risk still remains unquantified.” Id. at 421 (Handler, J., concurring). When the Court allowed *617recovery for enhanced risk in Evers, it did not in the slightest way insist that the risk be quantified.
The majority reasons that plaintiffs’ claim is not cognizable in part because the risk of future disease does not rise to the level of “reasonable probability.” See ante at 591-599. Yet the court concedes that the plaintiffs have proven that they have a “significantly ... enhanced risk” of contracting serious diseases. Ante at 591. It nowhere explains why a risk that generates the “reasonable probability” of future injury can be compensated while one that “significantly enhances” the likelihood of future injury cannot.
I do not criticize the Court for illogic or inconsistency. I stress only that if it is just and fair, and it is, to compensate a victim in one case for an unquantified enhanced risk of future disease, it cannot be right to deny recovery in a second case also involving a claim of unquantified enhanced risk. “[T]o deny ... redress for ... injuries merely because damages cannot be measured with precise exactitude would constitute a perversion of fundamental principles of justice.” Berman v. Allan, 80 N.J. 421, 433 (1979) (Handler, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part). “[Ejven where the pitfalls of measuring damages have been genuine, we have not refused to grapple with the complexities in order to recognize the justness and fairness of relief.” Schroeder v. Perkel, 87 N.J. 53, 77 (1981) (Handler, J., concurring in part, dissenting in part). It is the reality of injury presented by evidence, informed by experts, and tested by common sense and ordinary experience, that is the benchmark for damages. “Some of these losses ... might be hard to sense, difficult to define and puzzling to evaluate. They are, nonetheless, actual and constitute a sound basis for a lawful claim for redress and compensation.” Berman v. Allan, supra, 80 N.J. at 446 (Handler, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part).
The courts have not allowed the difficulty of quantifying injury to prevent them from offering compensation for assault, *618trespass, emotional distress, invasion of privacy, or damage to reputation. The claim in this case involves a tortious invasion, as much an invasion as the trespass of gas and microscopic deposits on someone else’s property, see, e.g., Reynolds Metals Co. v. Martin, 337 F.2d 780 (9th Cir.1964), or as in surgery performed without the patient’s consent, see, e.g., Schloerndorff v. Society of New York Hospital, 211 N.Y. 125, 105 N.E. 92 (N.Y.1914). Cf. Brafford v. Susquehanna Corp., 586 F.Supp. 14 (D.Colo.1984) (recognizing plaintiffs’ claim of present injury in the form of chromosomal damage and increased risk of contracting cancer). Where new forms of injury have been put before the courts, the courts have developed procedures, standards, and formulas for determining appropriate compensation. This perception was expressed in Capron, “Tort Liability in Genetic Counseling”, 79 Colum.L.Rev. 618, 649 (1979):
[T]he collective wisdom of the community on the proper redress for a particular harm, informed by experience, common sense, and a desire to be fair to the parties, seems an acceptable way of arriving at a damage verdict and probably one that is preferable to a more scientific (and sterile) process that excludes nonquantifiable elements to achieve an aura of objectivity and precision.
The plaintiffs’ claim of an unquantified enhanced risk should not be characterized as “dependpng] upon the likelihood of an event that has not yet occurred and may never occur.” Ante at 597. The injury involved is an actual event: exposure to toxic chemicals. The tortious contamination, moreover, is an event that has surely occurred; it is not a speculative or remote possible happening. Among the consequences of this unconsented-to invasion are genetic damage and a tangible risk of a major disease, a peril that is real even though it cannot be precisely measured or weighed. The peril, moreover, is unquestionably greater than that experienced by persons not similarly exposed to toxic chemicals. The toxic injury and claim for damages are not attributable only to some possible future event. Like claims based on the doctrines of trespass, assault, invasion of privacy, or defamation, the damages suffered are not solely actual consequential damages, but also the disvalue *619of being subjected to an intrinsically harmful event. The risk of dreadful disease resulting from toxic exposure and contamination is more frightening and palpable than any deficits we may feel or imagine from many other wrongful transgressions.
I am bothered by the unintended morbidity of the Court’s attitude. My discomfort was similar with respect to the Court’s refusal to recognize a claim for enhanced risk in Evers:
The inadvertent effect of such a court rule is that those victims, who undeservedly have been put in greater peril in terms of their survival, are not permitted to be compensated for this peril unless they have suffered ... cancer. [Evers, supra, 95 N.J at 418 (Handler, J., concurring).]
In deciding whether to recognize plaintiffs’ claims, the majority focuses on the problem of sovereign defendants in tort suits involving the unquantified nature of certain injuries. The majority, however, fails to note the long-term benefits lost when compensation is not allowed for injuries caused. Compensation serves to deter negligent behavior. See, e.g., R. Posner, Economic Analysis of Law 142-43 (2nd ed. 1977). We disserve this policy in this case, where the defendant municipality has engaged not simply in negligent conduct, but in “palpably unreasonable” conduct causing real and serious injury to its residents. This Court recently offered the following reply to an argument that a particular cause of action not be recognized:
In addressing these arguments, we must keep in mind the central goals of the law of torts. As we said in [People Exp. Airlines, Inc. v. Consolidated Rail, 100 N.J. 246, 255 (1985) ], the primary purpose of the tort law is “that wronged persons should be compensated for their injuries and that those responsible for the wrong should bear the cost of their tortious conduct.” Moreover, forcing tortfeasors to pay for the harm they have wrought provides a proper incentive for reasonable conduct. [Weinberg v. Penns Grove, 106 N.J. 469, 486-487 (1987).]
But not merely as a matter of deterrence and efficiency, also as a matter of justice, those who cause injuries should be required to pay for them. Recognizing a claim for enhanced risk
is appropriate in order to prevent a tortfeasor from being insulated from the real but elusive consequences of his negligent conduct. A tortfeasor should not be allowed to escape responsibility for causing an increased risk that would not have existed but for his negligence simply because of the statistical uncertainty of the risk. [Evers, supra, 95 N.J. at 418 (Handler, J., concurring).]
*620The assertion that recognition of plaintiffs’ claims will open a flood gate of litigations seems insubstantial when compared to the actuality of plaintiffs’ injury. Courts should not allow speculative fears or undifferentiated anxiety over a possible rush of litigation to defeat a sound and fair cause of action. See Kelly v. Gwinnett, 96 N.J. 538, 556 (1984). The majority does not even make the effort to consider standards—e.g., burdens of proofs, presumptions, required minimal showings— that might make claims for enhanced risk more manageable and more limited. The proper course is not to leave the injured without a legal recourse. If social conditions and legal standards interact in such a way that litigating a certain kind of claim becomes burdensome, interested parties can then go to the legislature seeking reform. There is no reason to believe that, if circumstances warranted it, the legislature would not respond to problems in toxic tort litigation. I reject the majority’s solution of avoiding complexities in litigation by excusing negligence and allowing injuries to go uncompensated.
The majority speaks of the speculative nature of compensating claims of enhanced risk as if such would be an anomaly in the logical and orderly work of tort law compensation. The truth is to the contrary. There are relatively few injuries that can be easily or logically quantified. It is not merely the relatively new tort claims like “pain and suffering” and “emotional distress” that are difficult to quantify. What is the logical method of evaluation for compensating a claim of trespass on land, the battery of unconsented-to surgery, a violation of personal privacy, or an insult to character? When a jury awards $50,000 for an accident that led to the loss of a limb, how is that $50,000 a logical quantification of that injury? 2
*621The severe limitation of damages imposed by the Court in this case is inadequate and unfair. No person in her right mind would trade places with any one of these plaintiffs. Does this not suggest that a person would have to be paid a considerable sum of money, more than that permitted here by the Court, before tolerating the injuries suffered by these plaintiffs? Why should not a jury be permitted to make this determination? **3
III.
The Court does award limited compensation to plaintiffs. It upholds an award of $8.2 million representing the cost of future annual medical surveillance. Nevertheless, the majority determines that, at least for future cases, “the use of a court-supervised fund [rather than a lump-sum verdict] to administer medical-surveillance payments in mass exposure cases, particularly for claims under the Tort Claims Act, is a highly appropriate exercise of the Court’s equitable powers.” Ante at 608. The majority argues that the use of a fund provides a method for offsetting a defendant’s liability by payments from collateral sources, serves the public health interest by creating an incentive for plaintiffs to use their judgments to pay for medical monitoring, and serves the purpose of the Tort Claims Act by limiting the liability of public entities.
*622The fundamental assumption of the tort law is that individuals who are wrongfully injured should be compensated. See, e.g., Merenoff v. Merenoff, 76 N.J. 535, 547 (1978). Where the Court recognizes that the defendant has breached its legal duties and that an injury has occurred, the Court should recognize the plaintiffs’ cause of action and entitlement to damages. See Berman v. Allan, supra, 80 N.J. at 436-37, 444-46 (Handler, J., dissenting).
The majority in the present case seems to want to have it both ways. It accepts the lower court’s judgment that the Township violated its legal duties, and that the Township’s citizens were injured by that violation. The majority does not claim that some overriding policy reasons justify immunizing the Township’s actions. Further, it recognizes plaintiffs’ entitlement to damages, at least some damages, to compensate them for their injury. However, the Court holds that,for future cases of this type, compensation should not be given to plaintiffs for the injuries they suffered. Instead a type of escrow account must be established under judicial supervision, with payment going to the injured plaintiffs only under limited circumstances.
I am not persuaded that fairness or practicability dictate such stringent limitations on plaintiffs’ damages award. Ordinarily, reference to future expenses or the loss of future income is one way to estimate what reasonable compensation would be for a victim’s losses (keeping in mind the limitations of such compensation: money can rarely compensate fully for what was lost, but it is the best approximation to compensation that our system offers). To assume that these special damages are the equivalent of fair and adequate compensation and, then, to attach conditions and judicial supervision to such attempts at compensation is to misunderstand the underlying system. This Court has never before so weakened the common-law system of compensation. It is singularly unfair and inappropriate to apply this more limited approach to judgment awards, discriminating against this particular class of tort plaintiffs.
*623The Court in this case purports to divine and adopt this special rule of compensation as an exercise of its equitable judicial powers. It is, however, hardly equitable to deny plaintiffs adequate recovery for the acknowledged tortiously inflicted injury, and compound this unfairness by denying them full enjoyment of the only item of damages that the Court recognizes. In a series of cases involving children born with serious birth defects due to negligent medical care, this Court held that both the parents and the child could recover—as lump sum damages—an award based upon the child’s future medical expenses. Procanik v. Cillo, 97 N.J. 339 (1984); Schroeder v. Perkel, supra. In neither of those cases was the recovery kept under judicial supervision or made contingent upon a showing that the money would indeed go to pay for the medical expenses. To do so in the toxic tort cases would be an injustice to these plaintiffs.
IV.
The citizens of Jackson Township endured extended exposure to serious toxic chemicals because of the township’s palpably unreasonable misconduct. Their injuries are substantial—as real and as readily measurable as other injuries for which the courts allow compensation. Plaintiffs’ claims in this case should be recognized and fully compensated. The majority’s decision to grant only a limited portion of full compensation disrespects what the plaintiffs have had to go through.
For the reasons given, I would dissent in part from the majority’s holdings.
For affirmance in part and reversal in part—Chief Justice WILENTZ, and Justices CLIFFORD, POLLOCK, GARIBALDI and STEIN—5.
Concurring in part; dissenting in part—Justice HANDLER—1.

The Court also concludes that plaintiffs’ claims deriving from “subjective symptoms such as depression, fear and anxiety" are “pain and suffering.” Claims for “pain and suffering" apart from injury itself are not compensable under the Tort Claims Act. Ante at 572-77. In this case the evidence demonstrated essentially subjective symptoms consistent with mental and emotional suffering and distress; it did not establish, as to any of the plaintiffs, mental or emotional injury or disability (i.e. clinically-diagnosed depression, anxiety, phobia, etc.). Hence we are not presented with the issue of whether such proved mental or emotional condition would be a compensable injury under the Tort Claims Act. Cf. Saunderlin v. E.I. DuPont Co., 102 N.J. 402, 405 *616(1986) (a showing by " ‘demonstrable objective medical evidence’ [of] psychiatric disability" would be compensable under Workers’ Compensation Act).

But cf. Posner, supra, at 144, 149:
A victim who loses a finger sustains a cost that can be conceived of in various ways including the price he would have demanded from someone who made a credible offer to purchase the finger.
*621It is true that such losses, if they do not impair market earning capacity, have no pecuniary dimension. But this is not because they are not true economic losses; it is because of the absence of markets in mutilation.
If anything, it is more sensible to speak in terms of how much persons would have to be paid before they would consent to being exposed to toxic chemicals then it would to ask a similar question about a loss of a limb.

 I note that because the majority's rejection of the claim for enhanced risk relies so heavily on the Tort Claims Act, today’s holding must be read narrowly as applying only to claims brought against public-entity defendants. I disagree with the Court’s denial of compensation for such enhanced risk even as against a governmental defendant. Nevertheless, I consider the general question of whether a claim for enhanced risk can be brought in the New Jersey courts to still be an open question.