DuPont Water Lawsuit Settlement: Compensation and Next Steps for Hoosick Falls Residents

A federal judge has granted preliminary approval to a proposed settlement in a class-action lawsuit filed against DuPont Co. on behalf of Hoosick Falls residents who were allegedly harmed by contamination of their community's water supplies.
The approval by U.S. District Judge Mae A. D'Agostino, who said the agreement appears to be "procedurally fair, reasonable, and adequate," will add $27 million to the more than $65 million that has been recovered from the class-action litigation.
One of the next steps in the process requires current and former Hoosick Falls residents to file claims or to opt out of the settlement. Stephen G. Schwarz, a Rochester attorney who is a co-lead counsel in the case, said that notices will be distributed to residents via regular mail and email in early December, and the claim forms will be available soon on the website: https://www.hoosickfallspfoasettlement.com/.
For those who participated in the 2021 settlement, they will be able to file short-form claims. For those who are filing for the first time, they will be required to file longer claim forms. There is a public meeting scheduled at the Hoosick Falls Central Schools auditorium on Jan. 21, where attorneys in the case will explain the settlement and answer questions. On Jan. 22, a workshop is scheduled at the Hoosick Falls Armory; the attorneys will be there to help anyone needing assistance in completing claim forms.
The federal lawsuit was filed nearly a decade ago on behalf of residents in and around the village of Hoosick Falls, where the drinking water had been contaminated for decades by factories that used manufacturing chemicals produced by the company.
The settlement funds will be distributed among current and former residents of the community who had been exposed to perfluorinated chemicals through contaminated drinking water. It also includes an additional $6 million for ongoing medical monitoring of residents who enrolled in that program. When that 10-year program is over, any money left over will be distributed to the participants who took part in the monitoring.
The agreement with DuPont will bring the total distributions to residents for loss of property value due to the contamination to approximately $35,000,000. James Bilsborrow of Weitz & Luxenberg in New York City, a co-lead counsel for the plaintiffs, previously said that amount is very close to the maximum loss calculated by Dr. Jeffrey Zabel, a real estate economist from Tuft's University.
The tentative agreement was finalized in July as a multi-week trial in the case had been scheduled to begin in U.S. District Court in Albany, pitting a small community against one of the world's largest corporations.
DuPont had declined to be part of an earlier $65 million settlement involving three other companies in the case: Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics and Honeywell International — which had both operated a manufacturing plant in the village — as well as 3M.
As the case against DuPont wended toward trial, there had been a protracted legal battle over the admission of evidence and the expected testimony of expert witnesses. They included filings that described how the company had known about the potential health dangers of the chemicals but allegedly failed to tell its customers — including the operators of the manufacturing facilities that had spewed the chemicals from their smokestacks in the small eastern Rensselaer County community dating to the 1960s.
DuPont, in its trial brief, asserted that it was one of many companies providing those chemicals to the manufacturers, and that it did not control their factories or have a duty under law to warn them about any potential danger from the products. The brief also asserted that the manufacturing companies handled the products "shoddily" and were responsible for the groundwater pollution.
Four companies are alleged to have had varying roles in the decades-long pollution of the community's water supplies, which were contaminated with the perfluorinated chemicals used at the various factories in the village through the years. The earlier settlement with three of those companies had secured cash payments and long-term medical monitoring for thousands of property owners and residents, including those who were found to have elevated levels of perfluorooctanoic acid, or PFOA, in their bloodstreams.
The plaintiffs' attorneys had intended at trial to cite evidence they said showed that by the 1970s, DuPont had conducted blood tests on its own workforce and determined that employees working with Teflon products had retained PFOA in their blood, and that it took years to dissipate after any exposure ended.
DuPont began using ammonium perfluorooctanoate, or C-8, in the early 1950s. It's a synthetic chemical that was invented and produced by 3M to help manufacture fluoropolymer products, which are resistant to heat and water. One of the products sold by DuPont carried the brand name of Teflon, which was sold in liquid, powder and granular form.
Many of the small factories in and around Hoosick Falls used those products — or other forms of them — in their manufacturing processes. Often, the chemicals were dumped on the ground or settled onto the ground of the surrounding area after being emitted from smokestacks.
The litigation has sought to compensate residents in that area for the potential health consequences of their exposure to the chemicals, as well as the potential loss of property value, and to provide a system of early detection for any related health issues they may suffer in the years ahead.
More than 2,500 claims were submitted by residents who received compensation as well as access to medical monitoring in the first settlement.
The manufacturing plant that Saint-Gobain has operated on McCaffrey Street in Hoosick Falls since the 1990s had been a central focus of pollution concerns. The plant is adjacent to the village's water treatment plant, which pulled water from underground wells that have been polluted with PFOA. Honeywell's predecessor corporation, Allied Signal, operated the facility from 1986 to 1996, one of five companies that ran the plant since 1956.
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