ALLENTOWN – A nearly three-year-long legal battle centered on two Northampton County residents’ class action, public nuisance lawsuit against the Bethlehem Landfill Company was recently ended through voluntary dismissal, after it was learned the landfill wasn’t responsible for the acts alleged in their case.
Plaintiffs Robin and Dexter Baptiste initially filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania on June 26, 2018 versus Bethlehem Landfill Company.
The plaintiffs charged that the landfill was responsible for mishandling its waste, and creating an overpowering odor of feces and sewage that traveled to their neighborhood.
Though the class action case had been dismissed by the trial court in March 2019, it was resurrected by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in August 2020.
Where the case took an unexpected turn was the revelation in plaintiff Robin Baptiste’s March 5 deposition that the landfill had apparently not created the odor in question, but rather, a nearby wastewater treatment plant.
Baptiste even testified that her claim was against the wastewater treatment plant close to her home, rather than the landfill located a mile-and-a-half away.
“Mrs. Baptiste – who is, along with her husband, the only plaintiff and class representative in the case – testified unequivocally that the Bethlehem Wastewater Treatment Plant, located at 144 Shimersville Road in Bethlehem, has always been the sole cause of the odors she and her neighbors allegedly experience in their neighborhood,” a March 9 motion to vacate the class discovery schedule said.
“Mrs. Baptiste was certain that the odors have always been solely caused by the WWTP: She has seen the WWTP’s operations personally and at close range, where she smelled overpoweringly the same ‘feces’ and ‘sewer’ odors she recognized from her neighborhood.”
Mrs. Baptiste’s testimony also conclusively ruled out the landfill as the source of the odor, instead crediting it to the wastewater treatment plant. Thus, it seemed that the Baptistes had no claims against the landfill.
Problem: The Baptistes believed for nearly three years that their counsel had sued the wastewater treatment plant, instead of the landfill.
“This massive error and its many consequences resulted from Baptiste counsel’s failure to exercise basic due diligence and communicate with their clients. The correct information would have been gleaned in a matter of minutes through a conversation with the Baptistes prior to the initiation of this lawsuit. Instead, the past three years of time and resources invested in this case by the parties, the lawyers, this Court, and the Third Circuit have been wasted,” the motion to vacate added.
“The parties have litigated this misfiled claim for nearly three years. Those years have included two rounds of dispositive motion practice; a full appeal to the Third Circuit; the collection and review of tens of thousands of documents by Landfill lawyers and staff; the retention of a team of experts in preparation for class certification; and many hundreds of hours of attorney time. Moreover, the Court’s time is a limited resource – the waste of that time on orders, opinions, arguments, and hearings on claims that the Baptistes never even intended means that the Court’s time could not be spent on other parties and cases that deserved it.”
Three weeks later, the plaintiffs filed to voluntarily discontinue the case on March 30.
“Waste Connections knew the allegations against its landfill were meritless and refused to be intimidated by this formulaic lawsuit. The plaintiffs’ dismissal of the lawsuit with prejudice after one deposition vindicates the company’s position. It’s critical that the solid waste industry defend these cases vigorously and on the merits. Landfills are vital infrastructure for America and are not nuisances,” said Pat Shea, Executive Vice President and General Counsel of Waste Connections, the parent company of Bethlehem Landfill.
“The plaintiffs’ dismissal of the case after the first deposition underscores the importance of taking discovery and testing the evidence in every case,” defense counsel James B. Slaughter added.
The plaintiffs were represented by Kevin S. Riechelson and Philip J. Cohen of Kamensky Cohen & Associates in Trenton, N.J., plus Nicholas A. Coulson and Steven D. Liddle of Liddle & Dubin, in Detroit, Mich.
The defendant was represented by John H. Paul and Michael G. Murphy, James B. Slaughter, Eric Klein and Collin Gannon of Beveridge & Diamond in New York, N.Y., Washington, D.C., Boston, Mass. and Baltimore, Md., Robert Michael Donchez and Robert A. Freedberg of Florio Perrucci Steinhardt Cappelli Tipton & Taylor in Bethlehem, plus Roy Prather III of Saul Ewing Arnstein & Lehr, in Harrisburg.
U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania case 5:18-cv-02691
From the Pennsylvania Record: Reach Courts Reporter Nicholas Malfitano at nick.malfitano@therecordinc.com