Medical monitoring for the increased health risk caused by exposure to a toxic substance isn’t enough to establish a legal injury under New Hampshire law, the state’s high court ruled Tuesday.
Residents of Merrimack, N.H., sued Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics Corp. for using a perfluorooctanoic acid in its manufacturing process at a nearby facility. They alleged that when the PFOA seeped into the environment, they faced an increased risk of cancer and hypertension, requiring at minimum medical monitoring, for which they sought compensation.
PFOA is one type of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, also known as “forever chemicals” because they do not ...