More than 1,700 homeowners in northeast Wichita will be able to pursue their claims together in a class-action lawsuit accusing Union Pacific Railroad of contaminating groundwater beneath their neighborhoods with the industrial solvent trichloroethylene, or TCE.
U.S. District Judge Eric Melgren on June 30 certified the lawsuit as a class action, allowing homeowners who meet the court’s definition to proceed as a single group rather than filing hundreds of individual lawsuits.
The lawsuit, filed by northeast Wichita homeowner Faye Black, alleges Union Pacific’s former rail yard near 29th Street North and Grove Street is the source of a groundwater plume stretching roughly 2.7 miles south beneath predominantly Black residential neighborhoods.
The class includes current owners of single-family homes where groundwater testing found TCE concentrations of at least 1.2 micrograms per liter. Homes that already have vapor mitigation systems installed are excluded.
The certification marks a major milestone in the case but does not determine whether Union Pacific is responsible for damages. Instead, it means the court found that enough legal and factual questions are shared by the homeowners to allow the claims to be heard together.
State officials first detected TCE in groundwater near 21st and Grove in 1994. The Kansas Department of Health and Environment later identified Union Pacific’s former rail yard as the source of the contamination and entered into a consent order with the railroad in 2002. Since at least 2005, the company has been investigating and working under state oversight to contain and clean up the contamination.
Union Pacific has maintained that it has cooperated with state regulators throughout the cleanup process and has argued its remediation efforts and proposed cleanup standards are appropriate.
Many neighborhood residents say they did not learn the contamination existed beneath their homes until a public meeting held by KDHE in September 2022. Black filed the lawsuit the following year.
Judge Rejects Railroad’s Argument
One issue Union Pacific raised during the certification process was whether the named plaintiffs’ homes were representative of the thousands of properties included in the proposed class.
Because homes differ in age, construction, location and potential exposure, the railroad argued those differences made a class action inappropriate.
Judge Melgren rejected that argument, concluding the homeowners share enough common issues—particularly whether Union Pacific caused the contamination and whether it migrated beneath their properties—to allow the case to move forward as a class action. Individual questions about damages or specific property conditions can be addressed later if necessary.
No trial date has been scheduled.
What Does a Class Action Mean?
What is a class action?
A class action allows many people with similar legal claims to pursue one lawsuit together instead of filing hundreds or thousands of separate cases.
In this case, the judge determined that more than 1,700 homeowners share enough common questions—such as where the contamination came from and whether Union Pacific is legally responsible—to have those issues decided in one case.
The ruling does not mean the homeowners have won.
It simply means the case can proceed on behalf of the entire certified class. If the homeowners ultimately prevail or reach a settlement, eligible class members could share in any recovery. If Union Pacific wins, the class members generally would be bound by that outcome as well.
The court has not yet scheduled a trial.