Suffolk County Water Authority v. Dow Chemical Co.
New York Supreme Court
44 Misc. 3d 569 (2014)
Suffolk County Water Authority (SCWA) (plaintiff) discovered that a toxic chemical, perc, had contaminated county water wells after seeping into the ground from various sources supplied by many different manufacturers. SCWA alleged perc was defective from manufacture, was a generic and fully interchangeable product, took years to migrate from the ground into wells, and could not be traced to any individual manufacturer. SCWA sued multiple companies (defendants) under a market-share liability theory, and the defendants moved to dismiss.
Whether market-share liability may be invoked if generically fungible products are both defective from their creation and cause harm a substantial amount of time after their distribution.