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Find a case where farmers sued a paper company for contaminating their farmland with PFAS through industrial sludge application.
Found 19 PFAS contamination cases

Several cases involve PFAS sludge application on farmland. Let me review the most relevant:

Analyzed Rougeau v. Ahlstrom Rhinelander, 785 F.Supp.3d 438 (W.D. Wis. 2025)
Analyzed Giordano v. Solvay Specialty Polymers, 522 F.Supp.3d 26 (D.N.J. 2021)

The strongest match is Rougeau v. Ahlstrom Rhinelander, LLC, 785 F.Supp.3d 438 (W.D. Wis. 2025).

The court denied the defendants’ motion to dismiss strict liability claims against paper companies that spread PFAS-laden sludge on farmland, finding that plaintiffs plausibly alleged the activity was abnormally dangerous.

Key Facts

Ahlstrom Rhinelander, a paper mill in Wisconsin, generated industrial sludge containing per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). The sludge was applied to agricultural fields as a disposal method. Farmers whose land was contaminated sued under strict liability, negligence, trespass, and nuisance theories. The court found that applying PFAS-laden sludge to farmland was “an uncommon and inappropriate practice posing a high risk of harm to people or land that cannot be mitigated by reasonable care.”

Rougeau v. Ahlstrom Rhinelander, LLC

785 F.Supp.3d 438·W.D. Wisconsin·Jun 4, 2025
In fairness to the paper mill defendants, there is at least some reason to doubt whether the Restatement factors support strict liability. For example, plaintiffs allege that the paper mill defendants disposed of “millions of pounds of waste” by spreading it on Oneida County farmland (id. ¶ 2), arguably suggesting that such application was common. Further, the very existence of the Wisconsin DNR's “Interim Strategy for Land Application of Biosolids and Industrial Sludges Containing PFAS” (dkt. #52-1) suggests that such an application to the land may have been common. Finally, the paper mill defendants point to cases where Wisconsin courts have concluded the Restatement factors suggest activities involving hazardous materials were not abnormally dangerous. E.g., Grube, 213 Wis. 2d at 545-47, 570 N.W.2d 851 (use of an underground storage tank was not an abnormally dangerous activity); Bennett v. Larsen Co., 118 Wis. 2d 681, 703-05, 348 N.W.2d 540, 553 (1984) (pesticide spraying not an “ultrahazardous” activity); Fortier, 164 Wis. 2d at 667-75, 476 N.W.2d 593 (depositing volatile organic compounds at landfill not an abnormally dangerous activity).
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