Mosaic Fertilizer LLC has successfully fended off a longstanding lawsuit brought by commercial fishermen alleging that wastewater from a Mosaic pond overflowed in 2004 into Tampa Bay and negatively impacted their business, according to Bloomberg Law.
In a three-judge decision issued Nov. 9, Judge Stevan Northcutt wrote for the Florida District Court of Appeals, Second District, that two fishermen’s personal observations of changes in marine life are not sufficient evidence of class-wide injury.
Howard Curd and other commercial fishermen sued Mosaic, alleging that a wastewater pond at the company’s phosphate plant overflowed and polluted Tampa Bay. They said the spill killed sea life and damaged the reputation of fishery products.
The lower court divided the case into liability and damages phases. It had granted class certification as to liability only, to determine for all class members the geographic scope of the potentially harmful effects of the spill.
But the appeals court reversed the certification order, finding that the fishermen didn’t provide any reasonable methodology for proving class-wide claims. “Without making some antecedent showing of the methodology by which the fishermen intended to prove class-wide claims, the fishermen failed to meet the burden of predominance,” the court said.
The case has been bouncing around the Florida legal system for several years, as the spill was in 2004. In 2010, the Florida Supreme Court allowed the suit to proceed, overruling a lower court that had denied the claim because the fishermen did not own any damaged property (GM June 28, 2010). At the time, the high court said Florida environmental statutes should be “liberally construed,” citing that damages may be recoverable for injury to natural resources and living things.