## Facts

- Numerous plaintiffs living or working near four Rocketdyne nuclear and rocket-testing facilities in Southern California alleged latent diseases and wrongful deaths from exposure to radioactive and non-radioactive contaminants released into the environment over decades.
- Plaintiffs asserted state-law tort claims (including negligence and wrongful death) based on alleged releases into air, soil, and groundwater.
- A subset of plaintiffs (the “RY Plaintiffs”) faced dismissal on statute-of-limitations grounds.
- The district court applied California’s one-year limitations period and granted summary judgment for defendants, reasoning the claims accrued when each plaintiff learned of a diagnosis more than one year before suit.
- The district court concluded CERCLA’s delayed-discovery provision did not alter the accrual analysis for these claims.

## Issues

1. Whether CERCLA’s “federally required commencement date,” 42 U.S.C. § 9658, governs accrual of California statutes of limitations for state-law personal injury and wrongful death claims alleging injury from environmental releases of hazardous substances.
2. If § 9658 applies, whether its accrual standard is more plaintiff-favorable than California’s discovery rule and therefore displaces the state commencement rule.
3. Under the applicable standard, whether undisputed facts established that each RY Plaintiff knew or reasonably should have known, more than one year before filing, that the injury was caused or contributed to by hazardous substances from the facilities.

## Decision

- The Ninth Circuit reversed the summary judgment and remanded.
- The court held § 9658 applies to these state-law claims because they alleged personal injuries caused or contributed to by exposure to hazardous substances released into the environment from a facility.
- The court held § 9658 provides a more generous accrual standard than California’s discovery rule in this context and therefore controls the commencement date.
- Applying § 9658, the court found genuine disputes of material fact as to when each plaintiff knew or reasonably should have known that the injuries were caused or contributed to by contaminants from the Rocketdyne facilities, making summary judgment improper.

## Legal Principles

- CERCLA § 9658 does not create a federal statute of limitations; it retains the applicable state limitations period but substitutes a federal standard for the commencement date when the state rule would start the limitations period earlier.
- Under § 9658, accrual begins on the date the plaintiff knew or reasonably should have known that the personal injury or property damage was caused or contributed to by the hazardous substance, pollutant, or contaminant concerned.
- California’s discovery rule generally triggers accrual when a plaintiff suspects or should suspect injury and wrongdoing; in toxic exposure cases, that suspicion standard may arise before a plaintiff has reason to know the injury is linked to a particular environmental contaminant.
- Whether a plaintiff reasonably should have made the causal connection between illness and exposure is often fact-dependent, particularly for latent diseases and complex scientific causation, and may preclude summary judgment.

## Conclusion

The Ninth Circuit held that CERCLA § 9658 governs when California toxic-tort claims accrue when injuries are alleged to be caused by environmental releases of hazardous substances, and it reversed summary judgment because the record did not conclusively establish when each plaintiff knew or reasonably should have known the contaminant-related cause of the injury.


O'Connor v. Boeing N. Am., Inc., 311 F.3d 1139 (9th Cir. 2002)