The NAM joined with other groups on 8/2/04 urging the West Virginia Supreme Court to overturn a ruling that certified as a class action a suit seeking medical monitoring of healthy employees and their children in seven states under different state laws for exposure to polyacrylamide at 8 companies. Because the laws and standards for applying them are so different for each state, some plantiffs' claims are not typical of the entire class. Instead, the class action should include residents of West Virginia and individuals who allege that injuries occurred to them in West Virginia. The NAM joined with the West Virginia Manufacturers Association, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the American Chemistry Council, the Coalition for Litigation Justice and the Property Casualty Insurance Association of America.
On 12/2/04, the court agreed. It threw out the class certification order, saying the lower court had (1) failed to conduct a meaningful analysis of the variations in the laws of the several states included in the class action, (2) failed to conduct a thorough analysis and make detailed findings when deciding whether the plaintiff’s representatives presented claims and defenses typical of the class (that is, based on the same legal theory), (3) improperly included subclasses that had no representatives from other states whose laws differ from West Virginia's, and (4) improperly concluded that the statute of limitations had not yet begun to run. This is a significant limitation on attempts by trial attorneys in West Virginia to overstate the size and reach of a class action law suit.