In Ex parte DuPont De Nemours, Inc., No. SC-2024-0514, 2025 WL 1009062 (Ala. Apr. 4, 2025), the Alabama Supreme Court granted mandamus relief to several PFAS-related defendants and limited the Water Works and Sewer Board of the City of Gadsden’s second lawsuit over PFAS contamination in the Coosa River.

Gadsden Water previously sued a different group of defendants in 2016 (“Gadsden I”) alleging PFAS from Dalton-area carpet mills contaminated its raw-water intake and that it needed an $80 million treatment plant. That case settled, funding a new filtration facility.

In 2023, Gadsden Water filed “Gadsden II” against DuPont De Nemours, Inc. (“Dupont”), Daikin America, Inc. (“Daikin”), INV Performance Surfaces, LLC (“INV”), and several landfill entities, again asserting negligence, nuisance, trespass, and wantonness based on PFAS in the Coosa River. The Etowah Circuit Court denied defendants’ motions to dismiss, and the defendants sought mandamus.

The Alabama Supreme Court held that the negligence, nuisance, and wantonness claims are subject to a two (2) year limitations period and trespass claims to a six (6) year period. Looking to the pleadings in Gadsden I, of which the trial court and Supreme Court took judicial notice, the Court concluded that Gadsden Water knew by 2016 that PFAS levels in its water exceeded then-current EPA health advisory levels and had already claimed the same economic injuries it asserts in Gadsden II. Because the second suit was filed in 2023, all claims against DuPont and Daikin were time-barred.

The Court rejected several attempts to restart the applicable limitations period, holding EPA’s 2022 decision to lower its PFAS health advisory did not create a “new injury” but it merely changed the regulatory threshold for a harm that had already occurred. The allegation that defendants later manufactured different PFAS did not constitute a separate injury, and the complaint did not plausibly allege a continuing tort or abatable nuisance that would extend the limitations period.

The Court ordered dismissal of all claims against DuPont, Daikin, and INV, while leaving the case pending against landfill defendants that had not asserted the same limitations arguments. For upstream manufacturers and suppliers, Ex parte DuPont offers a template for statute of limitations defenses.