Stephen Jones et al. v. Perdue Farms Inc. et al.

Summary

The United States District Court for the District of Maryland considered Defendants’ motion to dismiss, strike, or stay a Resource Conservation and Recovery Act citizen suit concerning alleged PFAS contamination from a Perdue Farms facility in Salisbury, Maryland. The court upheld Counts I and II, dismissed Counts III and IV, limited the case to relief relating to Plaintiffs’ drinking water, and declined to stay the action pending a Maryland Department of the Environment investigation. The opinion was issued by District Judge Stephanie A. Gallagher.

Holdings

1. Plaintiffs' notice satisfied RCRA's mandatory pre-suit notice requirement because it identified ongoing violations and described the allegedly unlawful conduct with sufficient specificity to give defendants an opportunity to correct it, even though it did not cite every implementing regulation.
2. Plaintiffs failed to establish standing to seek relief based solely on generalized recreational, aesthetic, commercial, or environmental harms because they did not specifically allege how they used or planned to use the affected waterways.
3. Defendants' provision of bottled water and offer or installation of point-of-entry treatment systems did not eliminate plaintiffs' standing because those measures did not constitute complete relief.
4. Count I was duplicative of Counts II and III but would not be dismissed at the pleading stage because Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 8(d)(2) permits alternative pleading.
5. Plaintiffs adequately stated a claim under 40 C.F.R. § 257.3-3(c) by alleging that defendants discharged PFAS pollutants into waters of the United States without a permit and violated specified Maryland statutes and regulations implementing an applicable water-quality-management plan.
6. Plaintiffs failed to state a claim under 40 C.F.R. § 257.3-4(a) because none of the PFAS chemicals identified in the complaint had a maximum contaminant level listed in appendix I, and the regulation defines contamination by reference to an appendix I maximum contaminant level.
7. Plaintiffs failed to state a claim under 42 U.S.C. § 6972(a)(1)(B) because they did not allege that they were currently drinking the contaminated water, and their environmental-harm allegations could not independently support the claim after the court found no standing to pursue those harms.
8. A stay was unwarranted because the scope and timing of the Maryland Department of the Environment's investigation and any resulting relief were uncertain, and discovery was unlikely to create conflicts with the investigation.

Questions Presented

1. Whether plaintiffs' pre-suit notice satisfied RCRA's notice requirements for their open-dumping claims.
2. Whether plaintiffs adequately alleged Article III standing based on alleged environmental and drinking-water injuries.
3. Whether Count I was impermissibly duplicative of Counts II and III.
4. Whether plaintiffs adequately stated a claim under 40 C.F.R. § 257.3-3(c).
5. Whether plaintiffs stated a claim under 40 C.F.R. § 257.3-4(a) when the alleged PFAS chemicals were not listed in that regulation's appendix I.
6. Whether plaintiffs adequately alleged an imminent and substantial endangerment under RCRA § 6972(a)(1)(B).
7. Whether the action should be stayed pending the Maryland Department of the Environment's investigation.

Disposition

other