## Facts

- Twenty-nine plaintiffs working in commercial seafood trades around the Chesapeake Bay sued Allied Chemical Corporation for economic losses allegedly caused by Kepone-related pollution.
- Plaintiffs alleged Allied, acting through Life Science Products, Inc., discharged toxic effluents tied to Kepone manufacturing into the James River, Chesapeake Bay, and related waterways.
- The alleged contamination led to fishery closures and restrictions, harming fishermen, oystermen, processors, wholesalers, retailers, and other seafood-industry businesses.
- Plaintiffs sought injunctive relief and damages and attempted to represent an estimated 30,000 affected persons in Virginia and Maryland engaged in the commercial seafood industry.
- After an initial denial without prejudice pending discovery, plaintiffs renewed and amended their Rule 23 motion, proposing a single, broad class spanning multiple occupations and both states.
- Allied opposed certification, arguing intra-class conflicts, individualized causation and damages, individualized defenses, and Virginia/Maryland choice-of-law complications.

## Issues

1. Whether Virginia named plaintiffs could fairly and adequately represent Maryland watermen and other Maryland claimants given alleged historical and economic antagonisms.
2. Whether the proposed class was too large and diverse to certify as one class, requiring subclasses by occupation and/or geography.
3. Whether Rule 23 commonality, typicality, and manageability were satisfied despite varying causal theories, defenses, damages, and potentially applicable state law.

## Decision

- The court denied certification of a single, undifferentiated class encompassing all affected commercial seafood-industry participants in Virginia and Maryland.
- The court concluded that conflicts between Virginia and Maryland watermen created a serious adequacy-of-representation problem for a unitary class.
- The court permitted class treatment only through the creation of six subclasses, largely organized by occupational categories and geographic considerations.
- The subclass structure was intended to isolate common questions within more cohesive groups and reduce conflicts and management problems.

## Legal Principles

- Rule 23(a)(4) requires fair and adequate representation; material intra-class antagonisms can defeat certification of a proposed class.
- When a proposed class is highly heterogeneous in occupation, interest, and type of claimed harm, a single class may be inappropriate even if a common alleged source of injury exists.
- Rule 23(c) authorizes subclasses to address conflicts and heterogeneity while preserving adjudication of shared issues.
- In mass environmental-economic loss litigation, courts closely examine whether differences in causation, defenses, damages, and potentially applicable law make class treatment unmanageable absent subclassing.

## Conclusion

The court refused to certify a sweeping, two-state commercial seafood-industry class because conflicts and heterogeneity undermined adequacy and manageability, but it allowed class treatment through multiple occupation- and geography-based subclasses tailored to align representatives, claims, and common issues under Rule 23.


Pruitt v. Allied Chem. Corp., 85 F.R.D. 100 (E.D. Va. 1980)