Clarence Thomas Warns of Domino Effect From Supreme Court Decision

Justice Clarence Thomas on Monday warned of future consequences after the Supreme Court opted not to take up a case regarding a lawsuit against DuPont and its spread of cancer-causing chemicals.

Over the summer, DuPont de Nemours Inc. petitioned the Supreme Court, asking the nine justices to review a ruling made against them, with the company arguing that it was unduly barred from making certain defense arguments. The lawsuit was initially brought by Ohio resident Travis Abbott, who claimed to have developed testicular cancer twice due to a DuPont plant in Parkersburg, West Virginia, exposing water sources per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), otherwise known as "forever chemicals."

Such chemicals are so nicknamed due to the difficulty human bodies and environments have in breaking them down. Companies like DuPont and others have come under considerable public and legal scrutiny for spreading such chemicals as a result of creating certain products, including Teflon.

A district court ultimately ruled in Abbott's favor in 2020, granting him a $40 million settlement, but DuPont argued to the Supreme Court that its ability to mount a defense was hamstrung due to a legal doctrine known as "collateral estoppel," which bars arguments pertaining to things that have already been ruled on in other cases, to prevent the same facts from being litigated on multiple times. Since courts had already ruled against DuPont in similar cases involving people it exposed to PFAS, the company claimed that it was unable to dispute "key elements of liability" during the Abbott case, which it called "profoundly wrong."

Ultimately, the Supreme Court on Monday opted against DuPont's petition and declined to hear the case. While most of the judges were in agreement, Justice Thomas wrote in the dissenting opinion that the collateral estoppel principle when applied to certain "multidistrict litigation" cases could prevent defendants from mounting a defense in "thousands" of other cases.

"Application of this type of collateral estoppel in an MDL, however, could
prevent a defendant from raising a defense in potentially thousands of cases," Thomas wrote in his dissent. "It would make no difference if other MDL plaintiffs have material differences that would prevent them from making their required showing on that element—once nonmutual offensive collateral estoppel has been applied, a defendant's hands are tied. In fact, a defendant cannot raise a defense even if there was no notice that bellwether trials would dictate the results of every MDL case. Collateral estoppel also must contend with a defendant's right to a jury trial."

Newsweek reached out to DuPont and legal experts via email for comment.