## Facts

- Children living in and around Herculaneum, Missouri were allegedly exposed to lead and other токсic emissions from a single lead smelter.
- The plaintiff, a minor acting through a next friend, sued on behalf of a proposed class of more than 200 similarly situated children.
- The petition asserted negligence, strict liability, private nuisance, and trespass, seeking compensatory damages earmarked to fund a court-supervised medical monitoring program.
- The proposed monitoring program would provide periodic diagnostic testing to detect latent injuries or illnesses that may develop years after exposure.
- The suit did not allege that each class member had a currently diagnosable physical injury; it sought prospective monitoring costs based on increased risk of latent disease.
- The circuit court denied class certification, reasoning that individualized issues (including exposure, causation, and damages) predominated.

## Issues

1. Whether Missouri law permits recovery of compensatory damages for prospective medical monitoring based on toxic exposure and increased risk of latent disease without a present diagnosable physical injury.
2. Whether the circuit court abused its discretion by denying class certification on predominance grounds in a medical-monitoring case arising from emissions from a single facility.

## Decision

- The Missouri Supreme Court held that, in appropriate circumstances, Missouri tort law allows recovery of medical-monitoring costs as compensatory damages even absent present physical injury, if the need for monitoring is proven with reasonable certainty.
- The Court treated medical monitoring as a category of damages within existing tort claims, not as an independent cause of action.
- The Court reversed the denial of class certification, concluding that common questions regarding defendants’ conduct, emissions from a single smelter, and the existence and structure of a monitoring program predominated.
- The case was remanded for further proceedings consistent with the Court’s guidance on medical-monitoring damages and class certification.

## Legal Principles

- Future consequences may be compensable when supported by evidence showing a reasonable certainty that the future harm or expense will occur.
- Medical monitoring may be awarded as compensatory damages when a defendant’s tortious conduct causes a significant, quantifiable increased risk of serious disease that makes periodic medical examinations reasonably necessary.
- A plaintiff seeking medical-monitoring damages must still satisfy traditional tort requirements (including actionable conduct and causation) and prove the necessity and value of monitoring with the requisite certainty.
- In class certification, the predominance inquiry is qualitative; common issues may predominate when the claims arise from a single course of conduct and seek a uniform remedial program, even if individualized determinations remain.

## Conclusion

The Missouri Supreme Court recognized medical-monitoring expenses as recoverable compensatory damages without present physical injury upon proof of reasonably certain need, and it held that a medical-monitoring class tied to a single emission source can satisfy predominance, requiring reconsideration of certification on remand.


Meyer ex rel. Coplin v. Fluor Corp., 220 S.W.3d 712 (Mo. 2007)