No class action for FEMA's (alleged) formaldehyde trailers

The Times-Picayune reports:

A federal judge Monday [December 29] refused to give class-action status to the lawsuits claiming that Gulf Coast hurricane victims were exposed to toxic fumes in government-issued trailers.

Instead, the U.S. District Court will treat each lawsuit individually since each plaintiff's case is unique, varying widely in age, health habits, and the amount of time spent in trailers delivered by the Federal Emergency Management Agency after Hurricane Katrina, said Judge Kurt Engelhardt. Plus, plaintiffs lived in different models of trailers, made by different companies, the judge said.

"All of the above are individual issues that render analysis on a class-wide basis utterly impossible, " Engelhardt ruled in a 50-page decision. "Each plaintiff's claims and alleged injuries will require an examination of individual evidence."

This story is getting national coverage: New York Times, USA Today.

You can read the court's 50-page order here. Posted by MBC at December 30, 2008 06:32 PM