Grefer v. Alpha Technical, et al.
After a year and a half of waiting the Louisiana Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals released its decision in Grefer v. Alpha Technical, et al. Though it's an important decision - I would imagine the Fourth Circuit is merely a way point between the trial court and the Louisiana Supreme Court.
This is a property damage case. The Grefers owned land in south Louisiana valued at approximately $1.5 million. For decades the land had been used as a pipe-cleaning yard. Used drilling pipes from oil fields were sent to the Grefer property for descaling and cleaning. The cleaning process resulted in the accumulation of Naturally Occurring Radioactive Material (NORM). NORM is a natural by-product of oil and gas drilling. Though not ubiquitous there is some indication that NORM contamination is a problem in many areas of the world. Industry knowledge about NORM dates back to the early to middle 1980s.
The trial court awarded $56,145,000 in compensatory damages and $1 billion in punitive damages.
The appellant-defendants raised seven assignments of error. The Court rejected all but one. The Fourth Circuit rejected the appellant's prescription argument, unlawful-jury-verdict argument, jury-instruction arguments, and the argument on the availability of punitive damages. The appellate court accepted the appellant's due-process argument on the quantum of the punitive-damage award. That award was reduced from $1 billion to $112,290,000 - twice the compensatory-damage award.
You can read the opinion here:
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