Lawyers are gearing up for trial in the first firefighting foam lawsuit. One of the keys to winning a jury trial is controlling what evidence the jury sees. Parties file motions in limine to exclude evidence. It should be noted, that the AFFF firefighting foam class action has been divided into two different types of cases: (1) personal injury cases, and (2) water contamination cases. The personal injury cases are filed by individuals who allege that exposure to AFFF caused them to develop cancer. The water contamination cases are being filed by local municipal governments who claim that their water systems were contaminated by AFFF. The upcoming trial is in the case of City of Stuart v. 3M Co., et al., which is a water contamination case.
A motion in limine is a pretrial motion made by one party requesting that the court rule on the admissibility of evidence before the evidence is presented at trial. These motions are often made to exclude evidence the court will agree is irrelevant, prejudicial, or otherwise inadmissible at trial. By making a motion in limine, parties in the AFFF litigation can avoid the jury seeing some of that evidence when it is presented.
Understanding what the AFFF defendants are trying to keep out of evidence is instructive of the issues that matter in this trial. The AFFF defendants have sought to exclude evidence that the sky is blue, so we will not go through every piece of evidence that the defendants seek to exclude. But this page will summarize some more interesting AFFF evidence that defendant jurors never see.
Lawsuit Information Center
