Third Circuit Remands 1,4 Dioxane Case to State Court Rejecting the Use of the Federal-Officer Removal Statute
In March 2023, the State of New Jersey sued Dow Chemical Company (“Dow”) in state court alleging that Dow was responsible for contamination caused by the chemical 1,4-dioxane which was used as an inhibitor in cleaning agents which Dow had sold decades earlier to, among others, the United States Government and military (the “Government”). Dow removed the case to United States District Court for the District of New Jersey under the federal-officer removal statute, claiming that in producing this chemical it was “acting under” the auspices of the Government. The District Court remanded the matter back to state court and on June 11, 2025 the Third Circuit affirmed the remand, holding that simply providing a product to the Government, even if the product complied with government specifications, was insufficient to implicate the federal-officer removal statute. See New Jersey v. Dow Chemical Co., 2025 WL 1646963 (3rd Cir. 2025).
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