Considerable logistical and procedural issues are involved when attempting to formulate efficient and manageable mechanisms for trying individual personal injury and property damage claims in a mass environmental contamination nonclass-action case.
A recent case illustrates this very well. On June 7, 2002, a partial jury verdict in the DuPont Pompton Lakes environmental case, Naftali, et al. v. E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Co., No. PAS-L-364-98 (N.J. Super. Passaic Co.), awarded $380,000 plus lifetime medical monitoring to three individual plaintiffs determined by the jury to be injured by exposure to contamination from the former DuPont Pompton Lakes munitions plant.
