The Third Circuit last week affirmed a lower court decision denying class certification in a medical monitoring case alleging vinyl chloride exposures. Gates v. Rohm & Haas Co., No. 10-2108 (3d Cir., 8/25/11).

Readers may recall we posted on this case at the trial court level last year. Plaintiffs alleged that vinyl chloride released from Rohm & Haas’s specialty chemicals manufacturing facility in Ringwood, Illinois contaminated the groundwater in and around McCollum Lake Village, as well as the air in the Village. Plaintiffs alleged that between 1968 and 2002, the vinyl chloride evaporating from the shallow plume blew over the Village, contaminating the air in the Village and causing some Village residents to breathe varying amounts of it. Plaintiffs claimed that the levels of vinyl chloride in the Village air were higher than the background level.