Philadelphia Top Injury Lawyer Blog

As a Philadelphia accident lawyer, I was disappointed to see a recent federal appeals court ruling denying an injured man a chance to pursue fair compensation from the company he says is to blame. In Roth v. Noralfco, David Roth sued a chemical supply company for various causes of action claiming it had a duty to design safer acid tank cars. Roth had a job at a York, Penn. paper company that included unloading tanks of sulfuric acid sent by Noralfco by rail. He suffered chemical burns to his face in 2004 when he attempted to unload a tank that was under pressure. The federal trial court granted summary judgment to Noralfco, saying the bulk of the claims are expressly preempted by the federal Hazardous Materials Transportation Uniform Safety Act of 1990, and the Third Circuit affirmed.

The HMTA regulates interstate commerce involving hazardous materials, giving buyers and sellers uniform regulations even between states. A section of the HMTA explicitly says that "Unless authorized by another law of the United States, a law... of a State... that is not substantively the same as a provision of this chapter... is preempted." It then goes on to list the areas of regulation that are preempted, which include what is a hazardous material, how the materials are packed and labeled, their shipping documents, notice of any spills and their shipping containers. The Third Circuit found that all of Roth's tort claims fall under the HMTA's purview, and were thus expressly preempted by the law. It dismissed Roth's arguments that his job was not "in commerce" and thus the HMTA did not apply, saying unloading is expressly part of the HMTA. Thus, it upheld the trial court's decision to grant summary judgment to Noralfco.

This decision is disappointing, because it means Roth cannot pursue compensation for what sound like some very serious injuries. In making this ruling, the Third Circuit did not rule on the merits of the case; it simply said there was no case because federal law has taken away the state-law remedy available to him. This leaves Roth and anyone else involved in shipping hazardous materials without recourse if they happen to be injured by dangerous materials like sulfuric acid while they are at work. As a Philadelphia injury lawyer, I believe our society can and should do better for the people who do this kind of dangerous job and rely on supervisors, colleagues or suppliers to stay safe.