Seventh Circuit sides with Lands' End in toxic uniform class action

CHICAGO (CN) — A Seventh Circuit panel reaffirmed an order in favor of retailer Lands’ End on Thursday in an underlying class action from a group of airline employees who said the retailer’s uniforms made them sick.

A group of 600 Delta Air Lines employees said the Lands’ End uniforms caused rashes, hair loss, breathing difficulties and low white blood cell counts in a Wisconsin class action filed in 2019. The uniforms “bled dye and harmful substances onto plaintiffs’ bodies and property,” a process called “crocking,” the employees wrote in their appellants’ brief.

A Wisconsin federal judge, however, disagreed and granted summary judgment to Lands’ End because the group was unable to prove whether the uniforms were defective and whether those uniforms caused plaintiffs’ injuries, and a Seventh Circuit panel concurred.

“At best, the laboratory results and expert opinions show that some garments leached dye, that some garments contained chemicals and heavy metals at varying levels, and that some crocking resulted in non-threatening chemical transfer,” U.S. Circuit Judge Candace Jackson-Akiwumi, a Joe Biden appointee, wrote in Thursday’s opinion. “None of the experts’ findings permit a jury to conclude that the hundreds of garments plaintiffs wore were defective in a manner resulting in the transfer of toxins.”

The differences in expert testimony were a paramount point of discussion and contention during the November 2024 arguments before the Seventh Circuit.

The employees’ attorney, Bryan Gowdy, pointed to an expert testimony from epidemiologist Michael Freeman, which was omitted from the Wisconsin judge’s summary judgment because it was deemed unreliable. Gowdy argued that the Wisconsin court improperly scrutinized Freeman’s data quality rather than considering the reliability of his methodology.

But the Seventh Circuit panel didn’t quite agree with that conclusion.

“We find the district court acted within its discretion to exclude Dr. Freeman’s causation opinion for lack of reliability under federal procedural law,” Jackson-Akiwumi wrote in a footnote of Thursday’s final judgment and order.

Freeman testified that the exposure to chemicals and dyes from the Lands’ End uniforms very plausibly caused the class of employees’ injuries, based on his analysis of employee questionnaires.

During the November 2024 arguments, the Seventh Circuit panel repeatedly asked Gowdy if there was any evidence that the uniforms were unreasonably dangerous, which he couldn’t answer concretely.

“If a uniform gets you sick —” Gowdy started to answer, before U.S. Circuit Judge Doris Pryor chimed in, saying, “That’s causation. We’re wanting to talk about the defect.”

Gowdy said the defect and causation are related.

“If my coffee machine makes cold coffee, well, that’s a defect and I get my money back, but I’m probably not going to get hurt from that. But if my coffee machine makes coffee that’s 250 degrees and I get hurt, well, that’s unreasonably dangerous,” he responded to Joe Biden appointee Pryor.

The Seventh Circuit panel, however, couldn’t get behind Gowdy’s leap from defect to causation.

“While the district court ought to have considered these issues in the first instance, remand is unnecessary because plaintiffs have failed to carry their burden as to the existence of a defect and as to causation based on Dr. Freeman’s usage of the questionnaire data,” the order reads.

U.S. Circuit Judge Nancy Maldonado, a fellow Biden appointee, joined Pryor and Jackson-Akiwumi on the panel.

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