Rodrigues v. Georgia-Pacific Corp.

A physician's initial expert affidavit testimony and the non-expert evidence raised a factual issue as to whether chlorine exposure while working for a contractor at defendant's plant caused the plaintiff's pneumonia.

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In this toxic tort action, plaintiff Ronnie Rodrigues appeals the grant of summary judgment to defendant Georgia-Pacific Corporation, arguing that competent evidence showed that Rodrigues’s exposure to chlorine chemicals at a Georgia-Pacific plant proximately caused Rodrigues’s pneumonia. We hold that the expert affidavit submitted by Rodrigues, in which a physician testified to a reasonable medical certainty that the chlorine exposure caused his pneumonia, showed this causal connection, despite the physician’s later deposition testimony indicating the causal connection was only a possibility. We further hold that even if the physician’s testimony only showed a possible causal connection, the non-expert evidence on causation sufficiently supplemented the physician’s testimony to create an issue of fact. Accordingly, we reverse. Summary judgment is only proper when there is no genuine issue of material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. OCGA § 9-11-56 c. A de novo standard of review applies to an appeal from a grant of summary judgment, and we view the evidence, and all reasonable conclusions and inferences drawn from it, in the light most favorable to the nonmovant. Matjoulis v. Integon Gen. Ins. Corp .1

So viewed, the evidence shows that while working for a contractor at a Georgia-Pacific plant in March 1998, Rodrigues was dismantling old machinery when he was suddenly exposed to a significant amount of chlorine or chlorine dioxide as he was unscrewing a valve, even though Georgia-Pacific was to have disabled the chlorine pipes leading to the machinery. Rodrigues immediately became ill, experiencing respiratory difficulties and nausea. His health worsened to pneumonia over the next few days, causing him to seek medical treatment at a hospital emergency room, where he reeked of chlorine. The emergency-room physician diagnosed Rodrigues with pneumonia due to chlorine inhalation before she referred him to a treating physician.

Rodrigues v. Georgia-Pacific Corp.

A physician's initial expert affidavit testimony and the non-expert evidence raised a factual issue as to whether chlorine exposure while working for a contractor at defendant's plant caused the plaintiff's pneumonia.

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