## Facts

- Numerous actions were consolidated in an MDL before the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York involving alleged groundwater contamination by the gasoline additive MTBE (and related TBA).
- Plaintiffs included public entities and water providers (and some private parties) alleging contamination or threatened contamination of drinking-water sources and seeking costs for investigation, monitoring, treatment, and remediation.
- Defendants included oil and chemical companies involved in manufacturing, refining, distributing, and selling gasoline containing MTBE.
- Plaintiffs alleged MTBE is highly soluble, persistent, and mobile in groundwater, making releases difficult to contain and capable of affecting water supplies beyond the immediate source.
- Alleged releases came from typical fuel-system pathways (e.g., leaking underground storage tanks, spills, and other distribution/storage failures).
- Plaintiffs asserted state-law theories such as negligence, nuisance, trespass, strict liability, and failure to warn.
- The decision addressed threshold defenses and Rule 12 challenges in a pretrial posture, including arguments based on federal fuel regulation.

## Issues

1. Whether the Clean Air Act or related federal fuel regulations expressly, impliedly, or by conflict preempted plaintiffs’ state-law tort claims arising from MTBE contamination.
2. Whether the doctrine of primary jurisdiction required dismissal or a stay in favor of EPA or other agency consideration.
3. Whether claims based on threatened contamination (including monitoring and prevention costs) were nonjusticiable or unripe absent exceedances of regulatory thresholds.
4. Whether the complaints plausibly stated state-law claims for nuisance, trespass, negligence, strict liability, and failure to warn despite MTBE’s lawful and regulated use.

## Decision

- The court largely denied defendants’ motions seeking dismissal on broad Clean Air Act preemption grounds.
- The court declined to dismiss or stay the actions under the primary-jurisdiction doctrine.
- The court permitted threatened-contamination theories to proceed where plaintiffs alleged present injury or imminent risk warranting reasonable monitoring or mitigation measures.
- The court largely held that plaintiffs adequately pleaded core state-law claims (including nuisance, trespass, negligence, and failure to warn), allowing the litigation to proceed beyond the pleading stage.

## Legal Principles

- Federal regulation of fuel composition does not, without a clear congressional command, categorically displace traditional state tort remedies for contamination-related harms.
- Conflict preemption is not established merely because a product is permitted within a federal regulatory framework; preemption turns on whether federal law requires the conduct that state law would effectively forbid.
- Primary jurisdiction is disfavored when the dispute centers on common judicial tasks—duty, breach, causation, and damages—even if technical evidence is expected and an agency regulates the subject matter.
- Regulatory thresholds for contaminants do not necessarily define tort injury; threatened contamination can be actionable when it creates a reasonable need for monitoring, prevention, or treatment.
- At the pleading stage, allegations that defendants knew or should have known of a product’s propensity to contaminate groundwater can support negligence- and warning-based claims; nuisance and trespass may be stated by alleging substantial interference with water-supply interests and invasion by contaminant plumes.

## Conclusion

The court’s ruling preserved plaintiffs’ ability to pursue state-law contamination and threatened-contamination claims in the MTBE MDL, rejecting broad Clean Air Act preemption and primary-jurisdiction defenses and finding the core tort theories sufficiently pleaded to proceed.


In re Methyl Tertiary Butyl Ether (MTBE) Prods. Liab. Litig., 379 F. Supp. 2d 348 (S.D.N.Y. 2005)