UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT

┐ GREG ADKISSON et al., │ Plaintiffs-Appellees, │ > No. 21-5801 │ v. │ │ JACOBS ENGINEERING GROUP, INC., │ Defendant-Appellant. │ ┘ Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee at Knoxville. Nos. 3:13-cv-00505; 3:13-cv-00666; 3:14-cv-00020; 3:15-cv-00017; 3:15-cv-00274; 3:15-cv-00420; 3:15-cv-00460; 3:15-cv-00462; 3:16-cv-00635; 3:16-cv-00636—Thomas A. Varlan, District Judge.

Argued: March 11, 2022

Decided and Filed: June 13, 2022

Before: SUTTON, Chief Judge; GILMAN and ROGERS, Circuit Judges.

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COUNSEL ARGUED: Theane Evangelis, GIBSON, DUNN & CRUTCHER LLP, Los Angeles, California, for Appellant. Mark E. Silvey, MILBERG COLEMAN BRYSON PHILLIPS GROSSMAN, PLLC, Knoxville, Tennessee, for Appellees. ON BRIEF: Theane Diana Evangelis, Theodore J. Boutrous, Jr., Peter S. Modlin, Jeremy S. Smith, GIBSON, DUNN & CRUTCHER, Los Angeles, California, Dwight E. Tarwater, Catherine Williams Anglin, PAINE TARWATER BICKERS LLP, Knoxville, Tennessee, J. Isaac Sanders, William J. Harbison II, NEAL & HARWELL, PC, Nashville, Tennessee, for Appellant. Mark E. Silvey, Louis W. Ringger, III, William A. Ladnier, MILBERG COLEMAN BRYSON PHILLIPS GROSSMAN, PLLC, Knoxville, Tennessee, for Appellees. David D. Ayliffe, TENNESSEE VALLEY AUTHORITY, Knoxville, Tennessee, for Amicus Curiae. No. 21-5801 Adkisson et al. v. Jacobs Eng’g Group, Inc Page 2

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AMENDED OPINION ______________________

RONALD LEE GILMAN, Circuit Judge. This consolidated action involves a group of individuals (Plaintiffs) who worked, or had spouses or next of kin who worked, on the Tennessee Valley Authority’s (TVA’s) coal-ash cleanup, removal, and recovery project at the Kingston Fossil Fuel Plant (the Plant) in Roane County, Tennessee. Plaintiffs sued Jacobs Engineering Group, Inc. (Jacobs)—an entity that has served as the TVA’s prime contractor for the coal-ash cleanup since February 2009—for numerous common-law torts. None of the Plaintiffs were employees of Jacobs; they instead worked for various subcontractors.

After this court reversed and remanded the district court’s initial decision to dismiss the case for lack of jurisdiction, the district court bifurcated the case and proceeded with Phase I to determine whether Jacobs should be held generally liable to Plaintiffs. A jury found that Jacobs had a duty to Plaintiffs, that Jacobs breached that duty, and that Jacobs’s actions were a potential cause of Plaintiffs’ alleged injuries. Phase II, which has not yet occurred, is intended to assess specific causation with respect to individual Plaintiffs and the extent to which they are entitled to damages.

Both before and after Phase I of the trial, Jacobs filed motions seeking derivative immunity from suit based on its status as a government contractor. The district court denied Jacobs’s motions. Jacobs subsequently filed yet another motion seeking derivative immunity based on what it claimed were intervening changes in the applic