Justia U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals Opinion Summaries

African-Americans residing near a contaminated landfill claim that municipalities knew that well water was contaminated, warned Caucasian families and provided alternate sources of water, but did not warn African-Americans. In their suit under the Equal Protection Clause, 42 U.S.C. 1983, Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. 2000d, and state laws, a magistrate compelled testimony by plaintiffs' former counsel; the city asserted that, if plaintiffs consulted the attorney in 2000, the action is barred by the one-year statute of limitations. During a deposition, the attorney refused to answer some questions. The court granted a motion to compel. The Sixth Circuit dismissed an appeal for lack of jurisdiction. Plaintiffs were not appealing a final judgment and did not qualify for interlocutory review under the Perlman exception or the collateral order doctrine. Immediate review is appropriate if an order conclusively determines a disputed issue separate from the merits that is too important to be denied review and will be effectively unreviewable on appeal from a final judgment. Privilege is important and the attorney is a disinterested non-party, so the contempt-citation avenue of review is practically foreclosed, but plaintiffs, asserting the privilege, ultimately can avail themselves of a post-judgment appeal that suffices to protect the rights of the litigants and preserve the vitality of attorney-client privilege.

The Georgia animal-rendering operation was investigated under the Clean Water Act. Felony charges were dismissed and the company entered a plea of guilty to misdemeanor negligent discharge of waste water. The EPA subsequently received FOIA requests from outside parties, requesting documents it had obtained from the company. The EPA determined that documents obtained pursuant to search warrant or grand jury subpoena were exempt from disclosure, that other material had to be reviewed to determine whether exemptions applied, and that documents obtained from court dockets and state agencies are publicly available and not exempt from disclosure. The company sought a temporary restraining order, claiming that it was entitled to review the files before release of any information, and that confidential business information contained in the publicly available documents is exempt from disclosure. After three years, the district court ruled in favor of the company and awarded $116,038 in attorney fees. The Sixth Circuit reversed because the district court did not make a finding, and the record would not support a finding, of bad faith, necessary to support the award under the Equal Access to Justice Act, 28 U.S.C. 2412.

An underground pipeline leaked gasoline five times between 1948 and 1962. After tests revealed benzene in wells, not including the plaintiffs' well, the company conducted remediation and monitoring and purchased the property now owned by the plaintiffs. The plaintiffs bought the property and a low level of benzene was detected in the well in 1996. The company installed a new well, which tested free of benzene 22 times between 1997 and 2002. Benzene was detected at a very low level in 2003 and the plaintiffs moved in 2005. In 2002 one of the plaintiffs was diagnosed, at age 48, with non-Hodgkins lymphoma. The district court entered summary judgment for the company. The Sixth Circuit affirmed. The district court acted within its discretion in excluding, as unreliable under the Daubert standard, an expert's specific-causation opinion. The expert did not ascertain the level of plaintiff's exposure and the level of benzene in the well never exceeded the EPA's standard; the expert did not rule out other possible causes, such as the plaintiff's smoking.