Rising up down in Georgia, Bexis used the phrase “an entire lotta nuthin’” incessantly when encountering issues (just like the Nineteen Seventies Underground Atlanta vacationer lure) or folks (like Lester Maddox, who ruled the identical manner he rode bicycles) that didn’t impress him a lot.  That’s the phrase that got here to thoughts after we learn In re E. I. du Pont de Nemours & Co. C-8 Private Harm Litigation, ___ F.4th ___, 2023 WL 8183812 (sixth Cir. Nov. 27, 2023).  Certainly, the opening sentence of the du Pont opinion was:  “Seldom is so formidable a case filed on so slight a foundation.”  Id. at 81.  And sure, du Pont was an enchantment from yet one more bizarrely pro-plaintiff MDL resolution.

The du Pont litigation concerned chemical compounds, not prescription medical merchandise.  There, the district courtroom spent over 35 printed pages attempting to create one thing out of nothing and licensed a “medical monitoring” class motion that included as members each one who resided within the State of Ohio.  It reached this outcome, inter alia, by defining class membership to succeed in any “particular person” with “0.05 components per trillion” of so-called “without end chemical compounds” (technically, “per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances” (“PFAS”)) of their blood.  Hardwick v. 3M Co., 589 F. Supp.3d 832, 840 (S.D. Ohio 2022), vacated, 2023 WL 8183812 (sixth Cir. Nov. 27, 2023).  Because the Sixth Circuit identified, in its 4-page, however precedential, resolution vacating that monstrosity, that “hint quantity” is:  (1) “current within the blood of each individual residing in the US” and (2) “orders of magnitude lower than the quantities at present detectable by any testing.”  2023 WL 8183812, at *2.

The would-be class consultant “d[id] not know what corporations manufactured” the merchandise that purportedly uncovered him to PFAS, and “d[id] not know whether or not these explicit PFAS had been current” in these merchandise.  Id. at *1.  So he arbitrarily sued “ten defendants” out “of the 1000’s of corporations which have manufactured chemical compounds of this normal kind.”  Id.  Not surprisingly, the grievance merely lumped all of the defendants collectively, with “each collective . . . and conclusory” allegations.  Id.  On that just about non-existent foundation, the MDL courtroom “licensed a category comprising each individual residing within the State of Ohio − some 11.8 million folks.”  Id.

Within the Sixth Circuit, the MDL resolution didn’t even make it to first base.  Not bothering to decertify the category, the appellate courtroom ordered the motion dismissed altogether for lack of standing.  To deliver go well with “[p]laintiffs should have suffered an harm.  They have to hint this harm to the defendant.  And so they should present {that a} courtroom can redress it.”  Id. at *2 (quotation and citation marks omitted).  {That a} case is “a putative class motion provides nothing to the query of standing.”  Id. (quotation and citation marks omitted).

The du Pont grievance completely flunked – failing on the preliminary component of “traceability.”  First, “standing shouldn’t be allotted in gross.”  Id. at *3 (quotation and citation marks omitted).  Not solely was the complete grievance pleaded collectively towards “defendants,” however that was additionally how the category was licensed – “referring to the actions of ‘Defendants’ all through.”  Id.  A plaintiff “doesn’t [have] a license to sue anybody over something.”  Id. (quotation and citation marks omitted).  As a result of plaintiff “has not even tried to make that extra particular exhibiting” towards any of the defendants, he lacked standing as to all of them.  Id.

Second, all the plaintiff’s allegations had been “conclusory.”  Id.  With 1000’s of various PFAS chemical compounds:

To allege merely that these defendants manufactured or in any other case distributed “PFAS,” due to this fact, is patently inadequate to help a believable inference that any of them bear accountability for the actual [five] PFAS in [plaintiff’s] blood. But nowhere in his grievance, for instance, did [plaintiff] allege that any of those defendants, a lot much less each one in every of them, manufactured any of these 5 compounds.

du Pont, 2023 WL 8183812, at *3.  Plaintiff “ha[d] not alleged details supporting a believable inference that any of those defendants prompted these 5 explicit PFAS to finish up in his blood.”  Id. at *4.  Nor may he, because the grievance’s collective vagueness was important to hide the inherently individualized nature of the medical monitoring claims within the would-be class motion.  As a result of plaintiff “elides relatively than meets the Supreme Court docket’s necessities as to pleadings and traceability,” he “lacks standing” and the complete pipe dream of a grievance was dismissed.

What occurred in du Pont is what ought to have occurred to the equally meritless class actions within the Valsartan MDL litigation we criticized right here.

If anybody desires to know why we are so strongly opposed to no-injury medical monitoring as a concept of legal responsibility, look no additional than the du Pont and Valsartan litigations.  Just like the Sixth Circuit in du Pont, we “start and finish, 2023 WL 8183812, at *3, with “medical monitoring” as a automobile for abusive litigation – particularly for creating an entire lotta nuthin’.